Sansa and the Sellsword
by NephilimEQ
Summary: Sansa is now married to Tyrion Lannister. Not only is she given his last name, but she now also falls under the protection of his very own newly knighted mercenary for hire, Bronn. Deciding to take control of her life, she starts by befriending the sellsword...but will it turn into something unexpected along the way? PLEASE REVIEW! I love them. :)
1. Chapter 1

**Sansa and the Sellsword**

 **Chapter 1**

Sansa Stark, now Sansa Lannister, was quiet in the first few days after her wedding to Lord Tyrion. He hadn't taken her on their wedding night and, because of that, she had a new found respect for him in a way that she had never expected. However, she found herself wandering alone through the gardens quite often because, as the Hand to the King, he was sufficiently busy throughout his days, and now that she would no longer be a member of the Tyrell family, her association with them had been cut off, leaving her to her own devices, as she had no desire to spend any time with her new husband's serpent of a sister.

Every day that she took a stroll through the garden, however, she was never truly alone. She soon discovered that she had a shadow in the form of Bronn, who had apparently been following her from a safe distance every time she spent any time on her own outside of Shae's or her husband's presence.

That was the one thing that she hadn't expected.

The sellsword was strictly sold out to Tyrion, so why would he bother to protect her? Unless, of course, Lord Tyrion had asked it of him?

She honestly wasn't entirely comforted having him follow her simply because of the fact that he _was_ a sellsword. If someone came along with more money who happened to hold a grudge against her and her family, he would be in the ideal position to kill her, and so her uneasiness of his presence persisted. It wasn't until over a week had passed that she managed to find enough wits about her to actually speak to him.

She had just walked around a corner of tall hedges, so she stopped and waited, knowing now, after ten days, that he would appear approximately three seconds later. She wasn't disappointed.

Bronn practically ran into her, nearly causing her to fall, but placed a strong hand on her shoulder to keep her from doing so and gave her an almost apologetic glance.

"My Lady…pardon me. I'll follow at a further distance."

Seeing him prepare to do just as he'd said, Sansa spoke quickly, saying, "Wait, no, don't. I…I was hoping to talk to you, Ser Bronn. If…if that's alright?"

He stopped and turned back towards her, his left hand resting on the pommel of his sword, an eyebrow arched. He was obviously suspicious of her words, but he nodded and stepped closer, giving her a cursory bow, which she could tell was unnatural for him by the awkward way he kept his hand at his side, ready to pull his weapon at any given moment. A habit, she guessed, that had come from years of working as a sellsword completely alone.

"What does my Lady wish to speak to me about?" he asked, keeping pace beside her as she started walking once more. At hearing the question so politely put towards her in a manner that was not typical of the man, she actually found herself floundering. She hadn't entirely thought about what she wanted to say, only that she wanted to get to know him a bit better.

At her silence, he smirked, and Sansa knew that it was because of the fact that he'd taken her off guard with his civil words.

Finally, she managed to say, "I was…hoping to get to know you a bit more, Ser Bronn, as you have apparently been tasked by my h-husband," she nearly tripped over the word, which still felt foreign on her lips, "to keep an eye on me when I am neither in his nor Shae's presence."

His eyebrow lifted again, but he nodded and replied, "Makes sense. After all, as the saying goes, 'know your enemy'…"

She stopped walking, and he halted beside her.

She stared at him, tall enough that her eyes were nearly level with his, and tried to understand what he meant by that. He stared straight back at her and, as strange as it was, she felt that he was the only person that she'd ever met who didn't seem to see anything but her. As a sellsword, he knew how to see through hidden agendas and lies, and in that moment the only thing that she honestly wanted to know was why he had said yes to Tyrion to guard her.

She thought about his words for a moment longer and then said, "Is that what you think I think of you? That you're my enemy?"

He shrugged.

"Why not? You and I both know that my protection is only as good as your husband's money…and every sellsword has his price."

That took her off guard, so she started walking once more, trying to wrap her mind around it, and he dutifully followed, his hand still resting on his weapon, his sharp eyes dutifully scanning the gardens around them, making sure that he was still doing his job. As they walked, Sansa finally thought of what to say and said it, deciding that brutal honesty was called for in this situation, as she was dealing with a man who had seen and heard it all, so a little brutal truth wasn't uncalled for.

"I would rather think of you as an asset, Ser Bronn," she stated, taking great care to keep her voice steady. "You and I both know that Lord Tyrion's money will always be more than what can be offered in nearly any circumstance, and since he's tasked you with keeping an eye on me, than I hope that we might form…an alliance of sorts."

He let out a small sound of disbelief and something akin to respect shone from his glance in her direction and she felt herself flush when he replied, "An alliance, eh? Does the little lord know that you've taken it upon yourself to try and befriend his killer for hire?"

She chanced a look up at him, and noticed that he was being completely serious, no smirk on his face to be seen.

Finally, she said, "No. He does not. And I'd like to keep it that way, if you don't mind."

As she walked forward, she held her head a little higher and her shoulders straighter, feeling more confident than she really was, but considering whom she was dealing with, she knew that she had to have more resolve and steady confidence in herself. If he saw any sign of weakness, any sign of faltering, he would not hesitate to point it out and to exploit it. Sansa honestly would not be surprised if the newly knighted mercenary went straight to Tyrion himself if he saw her waver in her stance.

He had stopped as she'd walked away, but she inwardly smiled to herself when she heard him pick up his pace to fall into step beside her once more. She then allowed her smile to show when he said, "It seems that you still have some Stark wolf in you, after all, my Lady; your claws are showing…"

She stole a glance at his face and saw that he was actually _smiling_ at her, and not just smirking, and it made him surprisingly more approachable.

At hearing his praise, she smirked.

She then stared straight ahead and said, "Thank you, Ser Bronn. It's nice to let them out once in a while…"

He chuckled at that and then asked, "So…an alliance, eh?" She nodded. "Having an alliance with a sellsword isn't exactly the safest of alliances, my Lady, if I do say so myself. I mean, I'm not discouraging you in any way, of course; I only think that you should carefully consider just what you want out of our alliance. Protection? Secrets?" He glanced at her as he added, "Revenge?"

She let out a small laugh of her own and shook her head.

"Nothing so trivial. Actually, though, the protection would be a part of it," she quickly added, making sure he understood that she would be the one dictating the terms of their alliance, and he nodded, seemingly alright with her request. "Also, I was hoping for one or two more things." He gave her a sign to continue, so she did, slowing down her pace as they made their way through the garden. "Besides protection, from enemies within and without the walls of the kingdom, I expect that you treat me with less formality when we are alone. Call me Sansa, please."

He seemed surprised by that, but he nodded, and she continued.

"The other thing that I ask, Ser Bronn, is that you talk to me."

At that request, he stopped walking, and she noticed after she had already moved ahead a few steps. She turned on her heel to look at him, and saw an obvious look of confusion over his almost handsome features, and she knew that he was taken aback by her last request. It was an odd one, to be sure, but Sansa was getting desperate to have someone to talk to. Someone that she could count on to not go running their mouth to every person that they met. Because he was in her husband's employ, he had certain obligations to keep the secrets of his employer. Which now included her, as well, and she was going to take as much advantage of that fact as was possible.

He finally managed to say, "You mean you just want someone to talk to?"

She wasn't going to be embarrassed of her request, so she straightened her spine and nodded.

"Yes, Ser Bronn."

After a moment, he grinned and replied with, "Well, in that case, _Sansa_ , I request that you call me Bronn."

At hearing that, she knew that their alliance had been made and a silent understanding fell between them as he stepped forward and took her hand in his. In an almost gentlemanly manner, he touched his lips to the back of her hand…and then smirked. She blushed, not knowing why.

"Thank you, _Bronn_ ," she said, bringing her hand back to her side and walking down the pathway once more. He followed beside her, his smirk still on his face, and then said, in voice that no one but her could hear if anyone else happened to be nearby, "I think this is going to be the most interesting alliance I've ever made…"

She smiled.

Yes, it would be interesting.

* * *

 **Part 1/?**

 **A.N. - I noticed that there was no serious fan fiction for these two, so I decided that it was up to me to write it! Tell me what you think. :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

After nearly two weeks of spending a few hours with Bronn nearly every day, Sansa was _still_ no closer as to knowing who he really was. For a man who claimed to be of little learning, he sure could manipulate conversations easily enough. Every time she'd managed to ask him a question about his past, in any shape or form, he managed to turn the conversation back onto her, and she would inevitably end up talking about her family to him; mainly about her father.

Had she mentioned her father's name to anyone else besides Tyrion and Bronn, she would have been labeled traitor immediately just for saying his name. She couldn't truly blame Bronn for acting the way that he did in avoiding her questions about his family and his past. In his profession, you couldn't have any personal connections. They were what got you killed.

However, one day as they meandered through one of the larger gardens, she managed to inadvertently contrive an answer from him.

"My father always told me that I should never take for granted what I'd been given in my life; that I was much more fortunate than others. I never quite understood him, but I realize now just exactly what he meant," she said, looking down at her hands, which were in front of her as she knotted her fingers into the lacings, nervously digging at them. Even though she knew that she could talk to Bronn about anything, she still became frightfully nervous when she mentioned her father.

The sellsword said nothing at first, but then, unexpectedly, spoke up, saying, "I know what that's like. Nothing's ever what you expect when you get older…especially when it comes to fathers."

In that moment, she realized that he'd unwittingly opened up to her, but instead of saying anything, she remained silent for a moment longer, and then carefully tried to press the subject further, trying not to press _too_ hard, in fear of him going silent once more.

"I never realized how much I _wasn't_ like him until after…after he was killed. I always thought that I was brave and fearless and ready to be, well, a queen, but apparently I wasn't…"

Her voice trailed off, hoping against hope that Bronn would respond, and she was silently thrilled when he did. Getting him to talk had been like trying to move a stubborn direwolf. His temper was just as bad sometimes, too, so she hung onto every word, confident that he was finally starting to open up.

He let out a sigh and replied to her comment, saying, "Sometimes it's hard to accept, like with you. Though," he added, with an almost soft smile, "I think you're more like your father than you realize, Sansa. In my case, it was easy to accept. I learned early on that I would not be anything like my father. And I was okay with that. In fact, you could almost say that I was thrilled to not be a thing like him. I didn't want to be a…"

He suddenly stopped, as though realizing what he was saying and who he was saying it to, and Sansa inwardly despaired.

So close. And yet, so far.

Immediately, he turned the conversation back onto her.

"Well, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you learn from not only what he told you, but also by how he lived, by what he did. A man's actions in times of mortal danger will always tell you the truth of who they are. Now, if your father is anything to go by, milady, then he was a great man. He stood by what he knew and didn't let them scare him into hiding. Not a lot of men would do such a thing, to be honest. In fact, most men who say they're fearless and good I have come to find are cowards when shown their fate at the end of my sword," he casually added.

Instead of revulsion, she looked over at him curiously as they walked beyond the main garden, out onto the portico that viewed the expansive water beyond. From their talks, she had carefully discovered that he was not as unlearned as he made others believe. When not surrounded by enemies and spies, he reminded her of…of Jaime Lannister, actually. His stance even changed when it was just the two of them. Instead of having his legs spread just a little too wide to be considered appropriate or slouching insouciantly, he stood surprisingly tall and held himself like, well, royalty. He even spoke more clearly, with less of a drawl in his tone.

Sansa thought about it a moment longer, but then brushed it off as she sat down on the edge of the wall, looking over the water, deeming it unimportant. What she would give to be out on that water, sailing away from the city that was her prison.

Bronn sat down next to her, glancing around the area where they sat, ensuring that they were, in fact, alone.

After a moment, he broke the silence, saying, "You're awfully quiet today, milady. Something bothering you?"

Sansa shook her head and smiled when she heard him call her 'milady' a second time. He _still_ wasn't fully comfortable with calling her Sansa and did so sparingly, but she found that she liked the way that he said the word 'milady'. From everyone else at court, it sounded like an insult, but from him it sounded sincere.

"No, nothing really," she said, sighing. "I've just been worried about Lord Tyrion. He's been gone more often, recently. Do _you_ happen to know why?"

She gave him an inquiring look, unsure if he would answer her. For a mercenary for hire, he was surprisingly loyal and protective of the dwarf's secrets, which she appreciated, but at the same time, she didn't like the feeling of not knowing something important that could possibly be dangerous for her. She was _always_ at risk, after all, having been a Stark.

He gave her a look and then looked out over the water.

"I'm not quite sure, myself," he said, squinting as the light reflected off the water. "There's been rumours, of course, but nothing solid, and I don't like to dwell on rumors. Rumors are what get even the smartest of men killed. Men like me," he added, smirking. He looked back at her, giving her a rare smile. "Nothing that will affect you, milady, I'm sure."

She simply nodded and looked back down at her hands.

After another long silence, she said, "My sister and I used to play a game." Sansa looked back over the water and caught sight of a ship. "We would look at the ships and wonder where they were going and what they were taking to other ports. I haven't played it in a long time…"

He didn't say anything, at first, and just stared over at the same ship that caught her eye. It had bright red sails that stood out sharply against the blue sky, like a blood-stained blade, but it moved slowly, heading out towards the horizon. They sat there for a long time, both of them staring at the ship, neither of them saying a word. Sansa was certain that she wanted to say something, but from his serious expression, she decided it would be best if she kept silent.

The rest of the afternoon passed without anything important being said, and when Sansa retired to her chambers that evening to dine with her husband, she was surprised to find her mind still on the sellsword, and not on anything else. It was the man's own fault, really, for being so damn enigmatic and close-lipped.

She was already sitting at the table when Tyrion walked in, and she tried to hide her surprise at seeing him there. He had been busy every night that week, so far, and so it was a strange sight to see him sitting opposite her at the table.

"My Lord Tyrion. So good to see you this evening," she said courteously, bowing her head slightly. She saw that he was uncomfortable with her formality, but she didn't feel sorry for it. She could not afford to let his few moments of kindness guile her into thinking that he was harmless. He was most likely the most dangerous out of all the Lannisters. She knew what kind of influence he could wield over people, and she was determined to not let herself be lead astray by a few kind words.

He didn't bother to correct her, and simply said, "Sansa. It's good to see you. I am sorry that I have been absent the past few nights. I've now been tasked with the kingdom's finances, and it is not _easy_ balancing a budget the size of my sister's ego…"

A small smile snuck out of the corner of her mouth at hearing his jab at his sister. At least they had _that_ in common. They both hated Cersei.

They began to eat in comfortable silence, until, during a lull between courses, Sansa decided to take a chance and ask her husband about his sellsword.

"Tyrion," she started, hoping to take him off guard by calling him by his proper name, and it seemed to work, as he looked up at her and put down his wine. Well, if she'd taken him off guard enough for him to put down his wine, then she had a good chance.

"Yes, Sansa?"

She smiled and kept up appearances as she asked, "I was wondering what you could tell me about Ser Bronn. He's been keeping an eye on me, of course, at your command, and I was curious as to where he comes from. He's so quiet and doesn't say much, so I thought it might help if I knew something about him."

At her words, her husband's eyebrow lifted.

"He's been following you?" She nodded. "At _my_ command?" She nodded again, but he slowly shook his head. "Sansa, I never asked him to do that. In fact, I was under the impression that he's been visiting, well… _other_ places over the past few weeks. At least, that was what he implied to me. Are you saying he's…stalking you?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, no, Tyrion, nothing like that! He has simply been guarding me when Shae is unable to be with me. I think, I think he's certain that someone might try to harm me if I were out on my own," she finished softly, and her husband simply nodded, starting to seem okay with the idea. Quickly, she pushed her opportunity and asked one more time, "Like I said, I wish to know more about him so that I may be able to talk to him."

Tyrion was quiet for a long moment, during which he picked up his goblet and took a long swallow. As he put it back down, he said, "I never asked him and he never said. It seems you are on your own, my dear wife." She visibly tensed at hearing him say those words and he winced at seeing her reaction. "As it is, as long as he is not bothering you in any way, then I will let him continue as he seems to have found a way to do something right for once without my magnanimous help."

With those words, he left the table, leaving Sansa feeling even more confused than before.

The sellsword had _chosen_ to look after her? What did that mean?

As she got ready for bed later that night, her mind went back to that question over and over again, driving her to complete distraction. Who knew that a man who sold out to the highest bidder for some bloodshed could be such a complicated person? Such as how he acted whenever he was around her and her alone.

He may have been a sellsword, but there was a sense of honor that still seemed to linger around him whenever it was just the two of them. It was strange, she thought to herself as she removed her day dress, stripping down to her shift. She knew that Bronn was a partaker of women and wine as much as her husband had been, or still was, at least on one count, and so it was odd, to her at least, to have him treat her with so much respect and kindness when they were alone. Again, the way that he held himself and spoke, it all just reminded her so much of Jaime Lannister and she couldn't figure out _why._ It was more than how he treated her or how he spoke. It was something more…intangible. Almost as if he had been…oh, she didn't know.

Sansa let out a frustrated sigh and slid beneath the covers, trying to put the thoughts from her mind. She was married, after all. Shouldn't she be thinking of a way to escape her marriage, and not a way to try and make her husband's paid thug spill his innermost secrets?

Why was she so determined to know the man?, she wondered to herself. It did seem _sort_ of odd that she'd suddenly wanted to talk to him.

But at the same time, she knew that she needed as many allies as possible if she wanted to ever possibly find a way to escape from the Lannister's clutches. Bronn was the perfect ally to have, in that case, and at that thought she remembered _exactly_ why she'd sought him out. In the end, she could most likely convince him to help her escape, using her husband's money as leverage.

With that reassuring thought, she drifted to sleep, but just before she succumbed, she heard Bronn's words from earlier that day echo in her ear…

" _You're more like your father than you think, Sansa…"_

...And she wondered what he meant.

* * *

 **Part 2/?**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Bronn sat in the corner of the room as Tyrion worked on a pile of scrolls at his desk. His sword was out, along with his whetstone, and he took his time sharpening the blade, idly wondering where the Stark girl was, as Shae hadn't said a word about where they were going. She may have been a Lannister in name, but it was in name only. He hadn't been kidding when he'd told her that her claws were showing. The girl was no longer truly a girl and was going to become one hell of woman, and not one to be trifled with.

He knew that if _he_ had recognized it, then others would, too, and would most likely try to take matters into their own hands, hence the reason why the girl needed protection. So, even though Tyrion hadn't actually asked him to keep an eye on Sansa, it felt honor bound to keep an eye out for her. She had only assumed that her husband had requested his sellsword to keep an eye on her, but that was _her_ assumption; he just hadn't felt the need to correct her.

As his hands went through the motions of sharpening his blade, he thought about the time that he'd been spending with the young woman over the past few weeks. It was supposed to be an alliance, of sorts, but he felt that she had some sort of ulterior motive in keeping him so close. In fact, he was sure of it.

He was a smart man, and he wasn't completely blind as to some of her actions. Such as how every time she mentioned her family she would then would encourage him to talk, discreetly trying to pry information from him. He had been doing fine, easily twisting the conversation back to her each and every time, but yesterday…hell, yesterday he'd been taken completely off guard by her new method, not expecting it in the least.

He _still_ couldn't believe that he had nearly slipped up in their last conversation just the day before. She'd managed to get him to talk about his father and he'd nearly given himself away…that had never happened to him before. The young woman knew how to use her naïve charms well, and he would have to watch himself more carefully when he was around her.

His thoughts, however, were soon interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Bronn," said the man behind the desk, without even bothering to look up, "Are you simply going to lurk in the corner all day, or are you going to make yourself _use_ ful?"

He smirked, not faltering in his sharpening of the weapon, his fingers gripping the hilt of his sword with an old familiarity and in an almost loving way that would bother more than a few people.

"Oh, well, useful could mean so many things. As it is, I find lying low and keeping out of trouble _very_ useful. Besides, now that the thieves are rounded up and taken care of, there's so little entertainment left for a man like me," he added, finally putting the whetstone away and placing his sword back in its' scabbard.

Tyrion looked up this time, pausing in his writing, giving his well-paid friend a curious look.

"Speaking of entertainment, _Bronn_ , how has your personal entertainment been for the past few weeks? Enjoyable, I hope?"

Bronn shrugged.

"Nothin' to complain about, milord. More than pleasant, as usual. The women of Kings Landing know their stock and trade better than most," he said, playing it as casually as possible, stretching his legs out in front of him, and crossing his arms over his chest. The only reason why he hadn't told his employer about his guarding of Sansa was because he was certain that the man would disapprove.

Tyrion gave him a look, and then stepped down from his chair and walked over to the side table, poured two glasses of wine, and then walked over to him, handing him one, and the sellsword could tell that his friend was about to try and drag some information from him, so he mentally steeled himself for it. What was going on between him and the newest Lady Lannister was honestly none of his lord's business; an alliance was an alliance, and she'd said that she wanted to keep it from her husband, so he would respect her wish.

Bronn took the wine gratefully and then took a casual sip, betraying nothing with his eyes.

Tyrion took a drink of his own wine and then said, "My wife has informed me that you have been…guarding her."

Well, so much for discretion.

Deciding to go with it, since Sansa had talked about it with her husband, he nodded, and replied with, "Yes, I have. You've been busy and Shae can barely stomach being around the girl for the amount of time that she has to, so when the Lady Sansa wanders off on her own, I make sure that no one gets any bright ideas about taking advantage of that fact…"

He took another sip of wine and then slowly stood up, walking over to the open archway that led into the open air courtyard, and leaned against a column. He wasn't going to hide the fact that he followed her, but he also wasn't going to give in so easily. As far as he knew, Tyrion only knew about the fact that he was guarding her and nothing more. He wasn't going to risk revealing their alliance out of fear that the man who paid him might take away some of his gold. An alliance was an alliance, after all.

Tyrion was silent, but then walked up next to him, giving him a sideways look.

After a moment, he said, in a quiet yet sincere voice, "Thank you."

Not sure if he had actually heard correctly, he looked down at his friend, an expression of incredulity on his face. This was unexpected, to say the least. He had been certain that Tyrion would have pulled him from his un-asked duties and force him somewhere else…but he hadn't.

They were silent for a few moments longer, both of them taking their time with their wine, staring out absently over the courtyard, barely noticing the people walking through. Finally, after several long, almost awkward moments, Bronn spoke up.

"I'm not doin' it for you."

He turned back into the room and walked over and placed his cup on the table next to the glass pitcher, not bothering to refill it. He heard Tyrion turn around, and he knew that meant that he had something to say, so, before the dwarf could say anything, the sellsword pivoted on his heel and stared straight at him and cut him off at the pass.

"I'm doin' it for her."

His friend stared, his half-filled cup of wine lingering in his hands, and with a questioning look, he asked, "Why?"

Bronn let out a frustrated sigh and sat on the edge of the table, gripping the wood tightly with his gloved hands as he stared the shorter man down and explained.

"Sansa may now bear the Lannister name, but she is a Stark, through and through, and she may have been a pup when she first came here, but, in case you haven't noticed, she's grown out of her weaning teeth and has become a bit more...sure of herself. That won't go unnoticed for long, _especially_ by your sister, and so I'm just trying to make sure that she survives long enough to develop some real claws and do her own damage," he added, with a bit of a smirk on his lips.

Tyrion smiled at this and walked back over to him, taking a place on one of the chairs next to the wine table. He took another long sip of his wine and then leaned back in the chair, leveling his eyes with his companion's, still slightly confused, but more accepting.

"Claws? Really…do you think she has the potential?"

Bronn smirked again.

"Oh, she definitely has it. Lions may have a mighty roar, but whether they're alone or in groups they rely on ambushes," he said, tilting his head in Tyrion's direction, and then he added, with an ever darker grin, "But wolves will run you down until you die from exhaustion. Think anyone here has that kind of stamina?"

His friend simply nodded and replied, "I see your point. So, will you _only_ be guarding her?"

The sellsword was now the one confused.

"What? You think I'd try to fuck the girl behind your back, is that what you're sayin'?"

Tyrion laughed and shook his head.

"Oh, no, not at all. You and I _both_ know that you have a strong desire to keep your head intact. Both of them," he added with a wry smile. "No, I was wondering if you were going to help her develop her claws. Perhaps, be able to defend herself should the need arise?"

Bronn looked at him in surprise, and then slowly shook his head, not quite believing what his employer was asking of him. Teach a woman how to sword fight? It would be bad enough anywhere else, but Tyrion was asking him to do it under the noses of the most deadly curious people in all of Westeros; the royal families of King's Landing. It wasn't impossible, but it was bloody dangerous, and he wasn't entirely sure if it was worth the risk.

"You want me to teach her how to fight." Tyrion nodded. Bronn crossed his arms once more. "That's quite a risk you're askin' me to take. The question is, is she worth it to both of us if we get caught?"

"We?"

Bronn smirked.

"Oh, I'll tell them it was your idea, alright, if it'll help save my own skin. Yes. We."

His friend gave him a humorless smile and a short nod and said, "I think she _is_ worth the risk."

Bronn nodded.

"Then it's done."

And with that, he went back to his chair in the corner and closed his eyes, wondering how the Stark girl would take to the idea. She would probably insist that it wasn't lady like, but he had a few ideas that could scare her to coming around to his way of thinking. Yes, this _was_ going to be an interesting alliance.

* * *

 **Part 3/?**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Sansa slipped past the guards just outside the doors to the main hall, desperate to get back out to the garden. She had been forced to spend the morning with Cersei and her ladies and it had been nothing but three hours of barbed comments in her direction about her lack of sexual exploits with her new husband. She couldn't stand it, and decided that there wasn't too much of a risk going out on her own.

She let out a sigh of relief when she stepped in between the massive hedges, taking solace in the feeling of anonymity for a brief while.

After a few silent filled minutes of walking, she became vaguely aware of the fact that what she was doing was dangerous, but she honestly didn't care much at that moment. However, she did feel a brief pang of regret at the fact that Bronn wasn't there. She had unexpectedly become accustomed to the callous sellsword's presence and just the thought of him brought a soft smile to her lips. He hid it well, but he was actually quite pleasant to be around when he wasn't around other people, and she liked that about him.

It felt almost strange to be out alone, now that she thought about it. She was never able to go anywhere alone anymore because of how closely Bronn had been watching her and how often Shae had been escorting her, and so it was a foreign sensation to be without an escort of any kind…but also freeing. Refreshing, even.

Sansa took her time, savoring the moment, walking slowly and enjoying the flowers as she did. Moments of serenity like these within the walls of King's Landing were, for her, rare, and so she took full advantage of them, basking in the illusion of being free from her massive prison. Her pace picked up, however, when she saw that not even other people were wandering the garden that she was in, and soon she took off at an un-ladylike pace between the hedges, holding her skirt a bit higher so that she didn't trip and fall. It was exhilarating, to say the least, and she almost felt like an innocent thirteen year-old-girl again who had just arrived in the South, instead of a broken just-turned-fifteen-year-old who longed to be back up North.

However, she slowed down when she heard voices nearby, through the sculpted bushes that lined the ever weaving paths. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but they seemed familiar. Disturbingly so. A strange feeling settled in her stomach as she heard the voices slowly get louder and therefore closer. They were headed her way. But then, one of the two began to sound more distant, and she knew that that was the one that was leaving and no longer worrisome, but at the sound of the second pair of footsteps, she knew the other one was headed in her direction. Her nerves getting the better of her, she turned around to head back the way she came.

She heard the voice even clearer, though, this time, and she suddenly recognized whose it was.

It was Joffrey's.

No.

Not him.

Anyone but him.

The last time that she'd been alone with him, he'd nearly…Sansa shook her head. She couldn't think about it, not now. She quickly poured all of her energy into finding a place where she could hide and wait for him to pass. She could _not_ be alone with him. She just couldn't.

As her mind raced, her eyes scanning the impregnable hedges around her, she suddenly realized why Bronn had been keeping an eye on her; in case something like _this_ happened. Damnit, she silently cursed to herself, becoming more and more frantic with each passing second. Why did the sellsword have to be right? She picked up her pace, her nerves getting the better of her when she heard Joffrey's steps pick up behind her.

He didn't know she was there; not yet, anyway, and she tried to always stay several yards away from him around several extra turns and bends in the hedges. Luckily, she had become more familiar with them over the past few weeks, so she had some chance of finding a place to hide.

She kept on looking, her breath starting to come in short, panicked gasps when she realized that she couldn't find a place to hide. The hedges were impossible to get through, and there were no small enough breaks for her to slip through to the other side. She closed her eyes for a brief second, taking a deep breath…

…and then nearly screamed when she felt a firm hand wrap over her mouth and a strong arm wrap around her waist, dragging her back into a darkened corner of the maze-like garden.

She attempted to struggle, but the lock on her was tight and secure, and she felt nothing but hardened muscle beneath the clothes that she attempted to grab at for leverage. She finally looked to see who her attacker was out of the corner of her eye, and was shocked to see that it was Bronn, the very man who was supposed to protect her.

He saw her panicked and confused look and pressed his lips to her ear, his hot breath brushing over it as he said, in a very low and serious tone, "You make a sound, one _single_ bloody sound, the boy will find us and use us as he sees fit, like the mad king he is. Now, if I remove my hand, will you keep quiet?"

Her eyes still wide, she nodded.

"Good. Now, then," he added softly as he dropped his hand, his left arm still tight around her waist and mouth still pressed the shell of her ear. "We're going to stay here until the cunt passes. Understood?" Sansa nodded a second time, taking small breaths, trying to calm her shaking nerves. "Good girl," he muttered in return.

How had the sellsword moved so silently? How had she not noticed him following her?

"Good girl," he repeated a second time into her ear.

Those questions, and more, swirled around in her mind, desperate to leave her lips, but she remained quiet, just as he'd asked, and watched with baited breath as Joffrey walked right past them, completely unaware of the two people in the corner who stared at him as he walked by. Sansa's gaze was one of fear and a touch of revulsion, but Bronn's was filled with nothing but pure disgust at the sight of the incestuous bastard. For some strange reason, his look made her feel safe, so she leaned back into him a bit more than was strictly necessary.

Bronn continued to hold her for a minute longer than after Joffrey had left, and then slowly let her go.

The instant she was out of his grasp, however, he snapped his hand around her wrist and dragged her to him so that there was barely any space between them, front to front, his eyes practically level with hers, and he hissed, "What the _hell_ were you thinking, going off on your own, you stupid girl? Do you not realize how many people in King's Landing would _love_ to cut off your pretty little head, milady?" Even when he was angry with her, he called her milady. "I'll not go to your husband and tell him that because you fancied a stroll through the garden without an escort, that I got you killed, or worse," he leered, and she could read between the lines on those words. "…Because he _would_ put it on me."

Sansa suddenly found herself more scared in that moment than she had been when she had heard Joffrey on the same path. He was practically shaking with anger, and she was shaking with fear at realizing just how close it _had_ been.

"I…I'm sorry, Bronn. I just, I just….I've been feeling so…suffocated," she finally managed to stutter out, still pressed tightly against him, and he suddenly let her go, almost shoving her away from him, and then placed his left hand on the pommel of his sword, propping his other one on his hip.

He then gave her a long, inscrutable look and said enigmatically, "Your husband's right."

Sansa shook her head, confused.

"Right about what?"

The sellsword smirked at her, but in an almost derisive manner, that held no humor in it and she ducked her eyes at the look. For some reason, it made her feel exposed, and she didn't like it. She stared at the ground beneath her feet, instead, and then snapped her eyes back up to his at his next words.

"You need to know how to defend yourself."

Her eyes widened.

"What? No. No, I don't. That, that's what you're here for and what our alliance is for, and I'll never go out on my own again, I swear it! I'll, I'll take Shae with me whenever I'm not with you and I'll not go out as often and I'll, I'll…"

He shook his head and gave her the same look as before as he said, "Shae is no more a maidservant than I am a bodyguard, milady. Given the opportunity, she would sell you out in a single breath. I would too, probably," he admitted, tilting his head. "Given the right monetary incentive, of course. But, until that day comes, I will do as our alliance asks and as my employer asks and keep you safe. Your husband suggested that I teach you how to fight, so that's what I'm goin' to do."

Sansa stood there in shock, not quite believing what he had just said, and then tentatively asked, "But, but…where…how would we….?"

He smiled deviously.

"Oh, I know a place, don't worry 'bout that. I'll teach you a thing or two about defending yourself," he added, taking a step towards her, closing the distance between them once more. "When I'm through with you, you'll be able to castrate any poor sod who tries to touch you."

He arched an eyebrow at her as she blushed at his crass words and then, uncharacteristically, offered his arm to her.

"Shall we go then, Lady Sansa?"

Giving him a tentative smile, she nodded, and took his arm, letting him escort her from the gardens. She had her fingers wrapped tightly around his forearm and couldn't help but notice, once more, that there was nothing but solid flesh beneath her fingertips. He was stronger than most men, she knew, and even though she had been escorted in such a way before, never before had she felt so…protected. Her smile didn't leave her lips as they walked back to the palace.

As they arrived at her and Tyrion's quarters, he released her and gave her a short, half-bow, and then a nod and a wink as she slipped into the room.

Long after she knew he was gone, she stood inside the closed door, her fingers pressed against the wood.

She was going to learn how to fight.

Suddenly, she felt a surge of hope fill her at the thought, instead of fear. What would it feel like to not be afraid? What would it feel like to be able to hear Joffrey's footsteps and not have her insides turn into a flock of ravens? To be able to defend herself…Yes. That was what she wanted. And she had never felt more reassured in her life that Bronn was the one who was going to teach her.

She was going to learn how to fight.

* * *

 **Part 4/?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

The sellsword woke early and made his way through the palace, the Lady Sansa's training on his mind. Several days had passed since the incident in the garden, and he knew that if he was going to teach her how to defend herself, then he was going to need a safe place and the proper clothes. He knew the perfect place, already, so that wasn't a problem. What _was_ the problem, however, was what she was wearing. She couldn't learn how to fight properly in a dress.

Letting out a soft groan, he made a detour to the laundry and swiped a few of the new recruit's clothes as well as some protective leathers and boots, knowing that they would fit her because of her stature. She was tall for a woman, and that would be a good thing in combat, as well as an asset in finding decent clothes for her to spar in. He felt no guilt as he stashed away three shirts and two pairs of pants into his own rucksack, knowing that the maids would chalk it up to laziness on the young men's part.

He slipped on down to the hidden court that was large enough for their purposes, as well as being right on the water, and smirked as looked around.

If no one could hear that woman scream, then no one would hear the two of them.

There were some trees just up the hill where he could not only hide the rucksack, but they were also dense enough that she could change her clothes without being seen. As he placed the bag under one of the leaning birches, he thought of the risk that he was taking by training her. So many things could go wrong.

Had Tyrion not requested it, he would have said no in a heartbeat, but he was giving him additional payments for each lesson that he gave to the lord's new wife, so he would do it. A bit of gold never hurt him, anyway.

Bronn made his way back to the palace, taking care to note what pathway was best to take to and from the hidden location, the one that would give them the least likely chance of being seen.

Too quickly for his tastes, he was making his way down the hallway to Tyrion and Sansa's chambers. As he approached the door, he saw the two guards standing outside, looking as they usually did; constipated. He snorted and then flashed a look at both of them as he said, "I'm here to escort the Lady Sansa. She's expecting me."

Actually, she wasn't, but they didn't know that, so he took advantage of it.

The guards gave him a look, obviously skeptical of Bronn's words, but he continued to stand there, feeling as confident as ever, one hand placed on the pommel of his sword. After a long moment, during which he knew he was under brutal scrutiny, the guard on the left tapped on the door and said, "Lady Lannister, Ser Bronn of the Blackwater is here to escort you. Shall we let him in?"

The sellsword couldn't help but feel a touch of arrogance at hearing himself addressed so properly by one of the guards. He knew that they resented the fact that he had been knighted, and being who he was, he took pleasure in their discomfort. At the same time, he couldn't help but be slightly amused at his title. Ser Bronn of the Blackwater. He wondered what his father would think of that title and if he would take any pleasure in knowing that his son was climbing the ranks in his own unique way.

He brushed it off when the door opened and the Stark girl appeared.

"Ser Bronn," she said formally, letting the door close behind her. "Thank you for arriving so promptly."

She lifted her hand and he saw what she was doing and hid a half-smile of amusement at her actions. Her words were almost cold, befitting someone more of Cersei's caliber than of Sansa's, but he saw the guards share a look of approval at her actions and Bronn had to clench his jaw to stop the smirk from appearing.

She was trying to keep the guards from becoming too interested in where she was going by giving them what they wanted, which was a cold and demanding demeanor that they were accustomed to from women of high standing.

He pressed his lips to her hand for a brief moment and then stood and offered his arm.

She arched an eyebrow at him.

"I am fully capable of walking on my own, Ser Bronn," she said, gathering her skirt in her hands. She walked ahead of him, saying over her shoulder to the guards, "Lord Tyrion knows of my whereabouts, but please remind him that I will be gone for most of the day, and that I wish to not be interrupted." She suddenly stopped walking and turned her heads towards the guards, who seemed slightly taken aback by her more forceful attitude and commanding tone of voice. She pinned them both with a fierce stare and said, in an almost icy tone that the sellsword had never heard from her before, "I'm sorry, did you not understand me or do I have to repeat myself, Ser Garran?"

The guard on the right shook his head and quickly replied, "No, my Lady. I will be sure to inform the Lord Tyrion." He bowed low and she gave a curt nod and then walked briskly forward, with Bronn following close behind, who was no longer hiding his smirk, outwardly pleased with her beautiful and almost flawless performance.

The instant they were out of earshot, he sidled up alongside her and whispered low in her ear, "Quite a performance, milady. Nicely done."

He saw a small smile creep onto her lips at his words and he smiled along with her as they headed towards the pathway that would lead them to their hidden retreat.

"Well," she said, sounding once more like the fifteen-year-old bride that she was, "I told Tyrion this morning that you would be coming by and he helped me with putting it together. He, well…he told me to pretend to have the ego of his sister. It worked."

Bronn let out a low chuckle and replied, "Yes, it did. You almost had _me_ fooled."

She gave him a sideways look.

"Really?"

He nodded.

"Yes. Now," he added as he turned them onto the barely seen pathway between the towering trees. "We're going this way, milady."

He then grasped her arm and, with a slightly less than gentle touch, he lead the two of them through some of the rougher terrain just beyond the gardens that gently sloped up and then turned sharply downward, towards crumbling stone steps that hadn't been used in over six decades. Sansa stumbled a few times, her dress catching on branches as they went down and Bronn silently groaned in his head. The woman was a mess. How the hell was he going to teach her how to defend herself if she was this uncoordinated?

As soon as they were on the small court, she looked around, her eyes wide.

"What…what is this place?"

He dropped his sword to the side and then motioned with one hand while he checked his dagger with the other and said, "I've come here a few times. I think it might've been a part of the garden at one point, but was forgotten because of all the bloody overgrowth. Now," he added, stepping closer to her, "You need to change. Your clothes are up there."

He pointed up the incline towards the trees, and Sansa looked at him in shock.

"You…you expect me to…to…?"

The sellsword rolled his eyes.

"I won't see a bloody thing, milady. The trees will provide more than enough cover, I'm certain, but if it'll make you feel better, I'll keep my back turned, alright?"

Looking a bit like a lost lamb, she nodded, and headed up to the trees. Sure enough, she disappeared completely, just as he'd predicted, but he turned his back anyway, talking over his shoulder to her as she changed, saying, "Today we'll be workin' on getting you right on your feet. It doesn't matter if you're the best at swinging a sword in the seven kingdoms if you haven't got any footwork. It's better to know how to avoid a hit than knowin' how to make a hit."

He heard rustling and then he heard her say in a strained voice, "Will I…have to learn a sword?"

He chuckled and shook his head.

"No, milady. I was thinkin' a dagger would be more your speed. But, we have a ways to go before that happens. You still need to learn how to defend yourself without using any weapons. Using your own hands and feet."

There was no response, and so, carefully, Bronn turned slightly and was more than shocked to see her emerging from the trees, fully clothed in a knight's training uniform. A white shirt covered her torso, tightly laced up the front, and was tucked into brown pants that fit her far better than they should. The boots fit her calves like a second skin and she had already placed the leathers over her wrists and her waist, but he could tell that they were tied too loosely.

As Bronn approached her, he could tell that was uncomfortable in the clothes. The instant his hands touched the laces on the guard around her waist, however, she seemed to snap out of her daze and she looked at him with an almost frightened look and said in a panicked voice, "Bronn…what, what are you doing?"

Suddenly, he knew. Had the girl been touched against her will before? Shaking his head, deciding that he didn't have the time to deal with it, he tightened the laces, tying them quickly with practiced fingers, dropping his gaze from hers as he said, "Just fixing your laces, milady. If you want to make sure no one knows what we're doin', then you're going to have to be covered up properly, so we don't show any bruises," he added, bringing his eyes back up to hers and he could feel her relax at the admission.

He then reached for her right hand, drawing it towards him, and she looked almost embarrassed.

"I…I couldn't really tie them myself. My…my father always did it for me."

Bronn looked up in surprise at her words, and she quickly explained, "He would let us come on hunts, on occasion, when we would go out with our wolves, and he always made sure that we were properly dressed, just in case we had to help, and so he would tie on my braces for me so that I could pull my bow if I had to…"

At that, he raised an eyebrow and said, "You know how to shoot a bow?"

She bit her lip and dropped her eyes.

"Not very well. I was never very good at it. I have horrible aim," she admitted, lifting her eyes once more. "Arya was much better. A natural, my father called her."

Bronn smirked at that as he moved on to her left brace, remembering all of the stories that she'd shared over the past week with him about her boyish younger sister, and he replied, "Well, knowing what I know about her, I'm not all too surprised."

She smiled at that, meeting his eyes once more. He grinned back.

As soon as he'd finished tightening the laces, however, he immediately pulled her towards him and flipped her around so that he held both of her wrists firmly in his grip, and then hooked his right foot just in front of hers and dropped the both of them down to their knees with him pressed directly up against her back, his legs on the outside of hers, effectively trapping her.

"What…?!"

He whispered in her ear.

"If you'd been standing correctly, I wouldn't have been able to do that…" Her body was taught with adrenaline and he smirked. "Now…let's see what we can do to change that, milady."

She nodded and he let her go, helping her up to her feet. As soon as she was on her feet, he moved behind her once more and said, "Keep your feet shoulder width apart." She moved them. "Good, now, drop your shoulders, lose some of that tension in your neck." She did that as well. He then walked forward and tapped his right foot just inside hers and added, "Now, can you feel the difference? When you stand right, you don't fall down as easily."

Bronn then proceeded to try and take her down the same way as before and was pleased when he felt her resist his advance, even almost throwing him off-balance.

He smirked as he pulled back and then circled back in front of her.

"Your biggest advantage, Sansa," he said, using her name, "Is that you're tall for a woman. And in a fight, that's a _good_ thing. You have more strength than you know, and you can take your opponent off guard by using it to your benefit." He reached forward and shoved her shoulders, but she stayed firm and he even saw her start to lift her hand in defense, but then she stopped, and he groaned.

"Oh, c'mon," he said, goading her once more with another firm shove. "A woman may not be allowed to start a fight, but she can bloody well finish it. Now, defend yourself!"

He shoved her a third time and was pleased when she brought her hands forward and shoved him back with enough force that he had to take a large step back to regain his balance.

"Good," he said, smirking. "Now, let's get to trainin'…"

She smiled.

* * *

 **Part 5/?**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Sansa was exhausted. Bronn had been training her now for over four weeks and yesterday had been the worst yet. He had been lying when he'd said that the leathers would keep her from bruising. Her ribs felt as though they'd been hammered into a new shape, but he told her that a little pain would be worth the end result.

For a sellsword, he was surprisingly adaptable and quick on his feet.

'And strong,' she thought to herself as she pressed a hand to her side, trying not to wince as she sat down at the table. Tyrion wasn't back, but she was becoming accustomed to eating alone in the evenings, and actually looked forward to it. However, with how Bronn had been training her, it had been hurting to sit down more and more often. They had started focusing very heavily on hand to hand, and he kept on knocking her to the ground rather soundly on a regular basis.

She resented it, but she was grateful for it, as well. Sansa could tell that she was becoming stronger.

At first, she had been reluctant to use too much force, but after another near brush with Joffrey a week after she'd started training with the sellsword, she had found a new found determination inside of her to press on in her training. Bronn almost seemed pleased when he saw her anger come out in their sessions.

He had started alternating days so that she wasn't too tired when they did train, but the Stark girl found herself looking forward to the days that they trained with a renewed vigor that surprised even her.

It had taken her longer than she'd liked to gain enough strength to even _try_ and get Bronn to the ground, but she had now done it several times successfully and it made her smile just thinking about it.

She started to eat, taking her time, savoring the food even more now that she needed the energy. In fact, she had been eating more than ever in order to keep of her reserves for training with the man who had sold his services to her husband. Her eating habits had not gone unnoticed by the queen mother, however, and Cersei had made a few barbed comments in her direction just the other morning about possibly being pregnant, forcing her into an uncomfortable silence. If she'd said anything, she knew that she would have most likely accidentally implied that her and husband had never consummated their marriage. And no one could know that.

Well, Bronn knew, of course, but that was different. The sellsword had made it clear when they'd started training that he was going to need to know intimate details about her in order to properly train her. Sansa had been mortified at first, but had given in, knowing that the man was only trying to help her.

And he had. Helped her, that was.

Just as she'd started on her second course, the door swung open and in walked her husband, looking weary and, she couldn't deny it, annoyed.

"Tyrion?" she said, much more comfortable in using his name now. "I am surprised to see you here so early. You usually eat…"

"Away from our chambers, I know," he said, almost icily, interrupting her and brushing her off with a wave of his hand. "But tonight I simply had to escape. Another evening with Lord Baelish has drained me of nearly all of my sanity and I have no desire to be in his company, for he only diminishes my will to eat."

He proceeded to place several rolls on his plate, along with a generous helping of meat and large goblet of wine. Sansa cast her eyes downward towards her own food, unsure of how to respond to his almost dismissive attitude. It wasn't like him to be so…well, so much more like the _other_ Lannisters in his family. He usually went out of his way to be polite to his wife, and she was hesitant to say anything in response, so she simply nodded and took another bite of her meal, chewing and swallowing nervously.

After a moment, he seemed to calm down, and he put down his goblet and said, "So, Sansa…Bronn tells me that you have been improving."

Surprised that he would bring it up, she nodded.

"Yes, I have. Bronn is a very skilled teacher and is very patient with me." She took a swallow of her water and then added, "I only hope that I can live up to his expectations."

At that, Tyrion grinned and let out a low chuckle. He then looked her in the eye, his own eyes twinkling with mischief, and said, "I hear that you knocked him square on his ass more than a few times, my dear wife." She blushed, slightly surprised that Bronn had mentioned it, unsure of how to respond. "Must you be so modest?" he prodded. "That is not an easy task, fighting a sellsword. You should be proud, Sansa…"

She simply nodded again and replied, "Yes, well, he's knocked _me_ down more often, my lord. I'm sore in places I didn't know I had."

As soon as she said it, she blushed a second time, feeling horribly embarrassed, but Tyrion only chuckled, taking another sip of his wine.

"Well, that is to be expected," he said, still smiling at her embarrassment. "After all, that's how you know that you're improving, is it not?"

She faintly nodded, picking at her food, and then, against her better judgment, she asked, "Has…has he said anything else about me, Tyrion? Anything besides how I've been, uhm, improving?"

Her husband gave her an odd look, and she knew why. The question was ridiculous, of course, and as soon as it had left her lips, Sansa knew exactly how it sounded and she immediately felt embarrassed by it. It sounded like she was a little girl harboring a crush, which she most certainly _wasn't_. The man was a sellsword, after all, and she was a married woman!

However, Tyrion mysteriously smiled after a moment and gave her a look.

"He mentions you on occasion," he said, being purposely enigmatic, she could tell. "He complains, mostly," he clarified, and she felt immediate disappointment, but then he added, "Being sore more often will do that to a person; especially when training a young woman who is apparently much stronger than she looks…" Again, she found herself flushing a bright red, but Tyrion continued, saying, "And it hasn't slipped my attention that he is no longer a purveyor of…well, of other forms of entertainment any more. He seems to be more content then I have ever seen him, actually."

He then paused, taking a long sip of his wine, and then pointedly said, "As are you, Sansa."

She ducked her eyes and stammered out, "Well, I…I'm not as, as afraid as I once was. I feel more…"

"In control?" he supplied, stepping down from his chair, walking over to where she sat wringing her hands in her lap, her food on the table all but forgotten. She gave a faint nod of her head, unable to look at him directly, and so she was surprised when she felt his hand over top of hers.

"That is to be expected. You are feeling stronger and more capable, and, I have _no_ doubt that you are channeling your fears and your anger into your fighting, if what Bronn has told me has any merit."

She gave a hesitant nod, and replied, "I've…I've been trying to. I don't want to feel…helpless."

Sansa finally looked back up at Tyrion, who was giving her a warm smile, but she could also see a faint gleam in his eye, like he knew something that she didn't, and she couldn't help but wonder what it was, but she brushed it off when he gently squeezed her hand and said, "And you _won't_ be. I'm certain Bronn will make sure of that."

At that, she smiled.

"Yes, well, he still hasn't let me near any weapons. Not even a knife," she added, trying not to sound too put out. "I mean, I _understand_ why, but I wish I could start learning it."

At that, he chuckled and dropped his hands from hers and said, "Well, I think you will find that you will be more than enough of a weapon for my nephew to handle." She looked away when he said that, more than embarrassed that he knew who she was picturing in her training sessions, but he just shook it off and added, "The boy needs to be taken down a few notches, and I would be incredibly pleased if it was you who did the taking down."

She finally laughed, unable to keep it from slipping out at his incredibly kind words, but was then surprised when a knock came at the door.

"Well, I wonder who _that_ could be?" Tyrion said, not actually sounded surprised in the least, causing Sansa to wonder what was going on.

She quickly stood up when he opened the door as she saw who it was. It was Bronn. He wasn't as disordered as usual, and almost seemed to be cleaned up, taking her a bit off guard as he breezed in, almost casually, and then gave her a faint smile as Tyrion closed the door behind him.

Realizing that she had almost forgotten her manners, Sansa folded her hands and said, "Ser Bronn, so pleased to see you this evening. What brings you here?"

At her words, both of the men laughed, leaving Sansa feeling more than a bit confused. Bronn never visited in the evenings. In fact, now that Sansa thought about it, the only other time that she'd been in the same room with the two of them had been when Joffrey had tried to punish her for her brother's so-called crimes. It was a bit unnerving for her, as she spoke about Bronn to Tyrion, and about Tyrion to Bronn, but did not know who to address first with her worries.

Logically, it should be her husband, but at the same time, she wanted to speak to Bronn first, as they had become almost, well, friends, over the past few weeks, and she had come to realize that he was much smarter than he appeared to be and so she valued his opinion, but it seemed rude to do so in Tyrion's presence.

Tongue-tied, she simply stood at the end of the table, trying to find something to say, but her husband broke the silence.

"Bronn requested that he come by this evening to give you something, Sansa. I thought it was a good idea, so I told him to come by…"

He let it linger for a moment, but she was only more confused than before. Bronn had come by to…give her something? What on earth could he have to give her? They purposely didn't let others see them interacting too much, lest someone discover their secret, so this was more than a bit odd that he'd dropped by just for her, but she decided to simply nod and let them continue. The two of them had obviously planned this behind her back.

Bronn, at seeing her nod, stepped towards her, an enigmatic smile just on the edge of his lips.

"Lady Sansa, if you could please put out your hands," he requested, still smirking, and she did as he'd asked, putting her hands out in front of her, as if to receive something. He then pulled out a knife and placed it across her palms and said, "This is your new weapon. You've done well enough over the past few weeks, that I think it's time to learn some new skills…"

Her eyes went wide and she looked up at him in shock. Forgetting that Tyrion was there, she dropped the knife, letting it clatter to the floor, and then reached up and flung her arms around the sellsword's neck, not quite believing that he was finally letting her learn the blade. Just a week ago, he'd said that she had at least three more weeks of training before he would even let her _near_ a knife, let alone learn how to wield one.

"Thank you, Bronn! Thank you!" she said into his ear, not caring in the least that he was uncomfortable by her actions. Because of him, she felt that she had a chance to survive against not only the Lannisters, but against anyone who tried to threaten her life. Because of him, she was no longer afraid, so she wasn't going to pretend otherwise.

He awkwardly returned her hug, patting her sides with his sword-calloused hands; during which neither of them noticed the soft look and slight glint in Tyrion's eyes as he stared at the two of them.

Bronn finally managed to say, "Uh, milady, if you could please…"

She immediately realized just how uncomfortable he was and at hearing Tyrion clear his throat, she pulled back and dropped her hands back to her sides, her face flushed with embarrassment. She had completely forgotten that someone else was in the room, and at the realization she felt her face blush an even deeper red. Oh god, she was mortified! What had she been thinking, hugging the sellsword in such an undignified manner?

Trying to regain some composure, she gave a short curtsy and said, in an even tone, "Thank you, Ser Bronn. I am most pleased that you've chosen to continue my training," but Bronn just rolled his eyes and reached over and grabbed the knife from Tyrion, who had picked it up off of the floor where she'd dropped it, and then gave her a look, motioning with the blade in his hand.

"If you can't even hold onto the bloody blade, do you really think I'm going to help you?"

Sansa looked suitably chastised, but the fact that she couldn't stop from smiling ruined the effect. After a moment, he rolled his eyes, and said, "Day after tomorrow, we start. Just...don't expect it to be sunshine and roses. It'll be hard. Knife fighting is one of the hardest things to learn," he added, his voice going gruff, the way that she was used to hearing it. "You'll be more sore and exhausted than you have been, and you'll need to get a lot more sleep than you've been getting', milady. Nine hours a night, am I clear?"

He almost sounded fatherly in his scolding and she bit her lip to keep from smiling and nodded.

"Yes, we're perfectly clear."

"Good," he said, tucking the blade into his waistband. She was confused by the action, and said, "But…I thought that was…" but he cut her off with a raised eyebrow and the words, "Yours? Yes, it is, but I haven't yet trained you how to keep the damn thing hidden, yet, now have I?"

She dropped her eyes, but then heard him let a sigh.

"I'll see you day after tomorrow."

She nodded, and he left, letting the door swing solidly shut behind him, and Tyrion gave her a broad smile, looking the happiest that she'd ever seen him.

"Well, my lady, it seems your sellsword has more faith in your abilities than you realized," he said, his smile turning into a smirk, and she noted his implication at the words ' _your sellsword'_. "And you seemed inordinately pleased, as well. I am glad that he's helping you, Sansa."

She simply sat back down at the table and gave a faint nod, not quite able to meet his eye, for some inexplicable reason feeling embarrassed.

"Yes, so am I, my lord."

Yes, she _was_ pleased that Bronn was helping her. But now…something felt different. She wasn't sure what it was, but it was good, so she decided not to dwell on it and just enjoy it for what it was. It was obvious that he was now her friend, so she would simply revel in the fact that she had broken the hard man's walls down just enough that he'd let her in.

And, if she had to put a name to her feelings…well, she liked him.

Yes.

She liked him.

And if she happened to smile at just the sound of his name, who cared. He was her friend, and she liked him, and that was all it was.

At the other end of the table, Tyrion watched his wife with a careful eye and was pleased with what he saw. A faint smile on the edge of her lips that had appeared when Bronn had, and it hadn't yet left, even after the mercenary had gone. Tyrion smirked.

Oh, she truly had no idea.

* * *

 **Part 6/?**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Sansa, dressed once more in knight's training clothes, held her new blade in her hand, testing the weight of it, feeling more than less than adequate as Bronn stepped behind her and put his body directly behind hers. She was no longer uncomfortable with his proximity anymore after weeks of hand to hand training, and even pressed back into him, so he wasn't as far away, letting her shoulders lean against his, using him for support.

"Now," he said, speaking directly into her ear. "When you hold a knife for fighting, you're going to hold it like this." He then positioned the hilt the right way in her hand and put his hand over hers, their fingers entwining.

She nodded, and took a moment to feel how it now felt in her hand. It was heavier than she'd expected, but it was a good weight.

He then placed his free hand on her left hip and tapped the toe of his right boot against the inside arch of her right foot and muttered against her temple, "Don't forget your feet, Sansa. Keep your weight on your toes, ready to move quickly. Remember what I've taught you," he added, putting a gentle pressure on her hip, his fingertips suddenly feeling warm, even through her layers of clothes. "Fast feet, level knees, loose hips." He then pressed his fingers a bit more firmly into her hip and said, " _Loose_ hips, girl; dammit, quit tightening up on me."

Pulling in sharp breath, she nodded, and adjusted herself accordingly, attempting to relax. It was the sellsword's own fault, really. For some odd reason, he was causing her to tense up. She didn't know why, but she knew that it was _his_ fault, not hers.

With only a small hitch in her voice, she asked, "Was this how you were taught?"

Sansa could feel him smirk, his lips near her jaw and she wondered why.

"No, milady. I learned all of this the hard way. A man like my father didn't have time for a brat like me."

Before she could question him as to what he meant by that, he cut her off, and then proceeded to instruct her on how to feel the weight of her knife as not an object, but as an extension of her body, and over the period of an hour, they stood this way. Every few minutes he would have her change position, but he was always right there, a reassuring presence behind her, giving her more confidence than she would have ever been able to muster on her own.

Her blade was exactly like his, with a uniquely curved edge, and she wondered why he had decided to teach her to use it, instead of with a ladies blade as she'd seen her mother use. That was what she had honestly been expecting to learn, but she took it in stride, silently pleased that he thought that she could learn how to use a blade like his. It made her feel strong. She knew, though, that had she tried to use it a few weeks ago, she would have been straining to simply keep the blade up for as long as she had already, and that Bronn had been most likely trying to build up her strength in order to wield it.

After a while, he finally pulled away and stood next to her, pulling out his own blade from its' usual place, tucked into a sheath behind his back.

"Now," he said, turning so that he was facing her, "I'm going to show you some basic defensive moves."

Sansa nodded and balanced herself lightly on her feet, bringing the knife up in front of her, and he gave her a wry smile as he looked her up and down.

"Of course, now that I'm not showing you, you get it all down perfectly." He shook his head and rolled his eyes, and added, "Look at you; light on your feet, your knees are solid and your hips are about as loose as they can get without fallin' off your pretty little torso…"

He let out a sigh and then squared off opposite her, mimicking her own position. He then said, "Now, if I attack _this_ way," and came at her with his blade in a downward motion, she instinctively bent her left knee and brought the blade up with her right hand, knocking against his and he smiled in surprise at her actions.

"Oh, you think you know what you're doin' now, do ya, milady?"

Sansa smiled.

"I've seen my brothers fight enough that I know this much, Bronn," she said, smirking slightly as she continued to hold his blade, and he smirked back, and replied, "Oh, really?" and then managed to sweep his blade in an unexpected motion, and suddenly she had her back pressed up to his front, the dull side of his blade pressing against her throat and his left arm around her waist pinning her against him.

His swift and lightning fast movements were an icy cold reminder of who and what he was. A sellsword.

However, an inexplicable sudden rush of heat ran through her as he hissed into her ear, "I know you're pleased that I chose to start teaching you this, but don't make the mistake of taking this lightly, milady. Had this been a real fight, the other side of my knife would have slit your pretty little throat already." She simply drew in several short, sharp breaths, feeling the heat that had rushed through her, settle somewhere between her legs; it was remarkably similar to what she had felt when they had first started training, but much stronger. He then said, "Now, if you don't mind, I'll show you how to use that knife of yours. Alright?"

She nodded.

"Good."

He let her go and they squared off once more.

Over the next hour, he showed her how to block strikes from different angles, and not just from a knife, but also from his sword. Sansa had to admit to feeling more than a bit of trepidation when he pulled out the sword, wondering how in the seven kingdoms she was going to fend him off. The sword was nearly as tall as her, but with his instruction, she actually managed to hold him off more than once over a prolonged period of time.

When they finished, both of them tired, Sansa finally decided to bring something up that had been bothering her.

As he was sliding his knife back into his sheath, she said, "Bronn, I was wondering something…" He looked up and nodded, so she continued. "When…when you've been teaching me about defending myself, I realized that I was a bit…uhm," she paused trying to find the word, and he smirked.

"Skittish?" he suggested and she smiled, embarrassed.

"Yes, exactly. I was skittish. Well, before I ask you what I want to ask you, I wanted to tell you _why_ I was skittish. I've never told anyone, actually," she said, wringing her hands and walking over to the edge of their small courtyard, sitting on the low stone wall, her knife in its sheath. Bronn joined her, propping one knee on the wall, his hands resting on top of it. Finally, she said, "When…when there was that riot in the city, I…I got separated from everyone. I ended up being…attacked. By, uhm, three men."

Bronn tightened his jaw, fairly certain of where she was headed with her story, but waited for her to continue, which she did.

"Two of them held me down and the third…" She paused, taking a deep breath, and steeled herself, for she had never said the words out loud. "The third man pulled up part of my dress and…and…he…he…he was going to…to…to rape me."

She let out a long breath, barely believing that she'd actually said it. She'd never admitted it to anyone, and only ever let them infer. But now she'd said it, so there was no taking it back. Besides, she didn't want to go back. She would never go back. She would never be that defenseless again, thanks to Bronn.

Bronn simply nodded.

"Yeah. I suspected as much," he said, dropping his knee and sitting down next to her, squinting over his shoulder into the bright light that glinted off the water.

"You…you did?"

Bronn nodded a second time, a grim look on his face.

"When I went to fix your laces our first time here, I saw how you reacted. I know that look well enough to know that there was definitely a reason behind it. It was one of the reasons why I thought you would take to the training rather well, actually. You had a reason to."

She gave him a curious look and then nodded as she replied, "Yes. Yes, well, it was one of my reasons, at least, but I still have a question. It, it has to do with what I've just told you." He gestured his head in her direction, a motion for her to continue, so she said, "Why haven't you taught me how to throw someone off me if I'm pinned? Isn't that…important? Especially for a _lady_ to know?"

At her question, he suddenly stiffened and stood up, and turned away from her.

In a tight voice, he said, "Because with what I'm teaching you, milady, it'll never get that far, I guarantee it."

Sansa shook her head, confused.

"But…but one of the things that you've taught me, Bronn, is that _any_ thing can happen during a fight, and that I have to be prepared for the worst, no matter what. Isn't that a part of it?" He wouldn't turn around, but she could see the tension in his shoulders. Ignoring it, she stood up and continued to press the issue. "I want to be able to protect myself, in _any_ circumstance, and if I can't even throw someone off of me, then I'm not prepared! I want to be able to-"

He suddenly whirled on her, invading her space so that there was barely an inch between them, and he hissed, "It won't happen. I won't let it."

Startled, she gaped at him, and then stuttered out, "What…what do you mean you won't let it?"

Bronn, seeing the confusion in her eyes, shook his head and let out what sounded like a growl, and then said peculiarly, "Damn you, Sansa…damn you, girl. You honestly have no idea, do you?" She continued to stare at him, completely mystified by his words, and he let out another growl and added, mostly under his breath, "I can't do that to you."

He then turned and walked away from her and said, "Go and get changed, already. I believe Lord Tyrion is expecting you for dinner this evening."

At his cold dismissal, she slipped up the hill and quickly changed, still baffled by the whole encounter. All that she'd wanted was a reason why he hadn't taught her, and he hadn't even come close to giving her one. Instead, she had gotten him riled up for no apparent reason and now he was upset with her. She didn't like it when he was upset with her; he started acting the way he used to when she'd first met him, cold and unfeeling, and she knew that wasn't true.

She slipped back into her dress, not feeling the least bit self-conscious when she came down and asked Bronn to finish tying her up. He had been doing so ever since their first session. She usually had Shae help her with her dress, and so Bronn had started to help her after their training sessions so that there wouldn't be any suspicion when she went back to the hall.

This time, however, as she lifted her hair for him to tighten the back of her dress, that same, strange warm feeling slipped down her spine as she felt his strong fingers tying the laces. Again, the warm feeling settled between her legs and she suddenly felt flushed, especially when his fingers accidentally brushed just above the line of her dress, briefly touching skin. Her breath hitched, and she waited for him to let go…but, instead, his touch lingered, slipping up to the nape of her neck, and neither of them said a word, afraid to break the silence.

And then, all too quickly in Sansa's opinion, het let go and then turned her around and escorted her back up to her quarters, neither of them speaking a word the entire time.

And when he left her at the door to her and Tyrion's rooms that was precisely what he did. He _left_ her there, sharply pivoting on his heel the instant they arrived.

She stared for a long moment down the corridor where he'd disappeared, but then hastily stepped inside the door, not wanting to give the guards any reason to wonder why she was acting so strange towards the sellsword. No one was supposed to know, after all. But even as she prepared herself for dinner, sitting at her vanity, brushing her hair and glancing at her reflection in the mirror, she couldn't help but wonder what had just happened between them.

He was her friend, her teacher, her confidante…but something had changed. And she wasn't entirely sure what it was.

What had he meant when he'd said, _I can't do that to you_? And why had he…touched her?

Finally realizing that she would find no answers in her mirror, she left it and went to sit at the table, where the first course had already been laid out.

Tyrion arrived just moments after she began to eat, and Sansa was pleased to see that he was in a good mood. Good. That meant she might be able to ask him about what his sellsword had meant with his words…but just as the thought came to her to ask him, she immediately decided against it. No, what had happened between her and Bronn was personal. She may not know what any of it meant, but she knew enough to know that she shouldn't bring it up with her husband.

No.

It was between her and Bronn.

To bring Tyrion into it, would be asking for trouble, she knew. He was a fixer, he liked to fix things, and Sansa had an uneasy feeling of how he might try to fix their problem. Money was always his answer to most things, and so she was slightly nervous that Tyrion would see fit to end her training, and she had no desire to end it.

She wanted…no, she _needed_ to continue it. It was the only way she would be able to understand what had happened between her and Bronn, she was sure of it.

After a long silence, Tyrion said, "How was your first day with a knife, Sansa?"

She didn't know what to say, so she simply said, "It went well. He's pleased with my progress."

At that, the lord lifted an eyebrow in her direction as he took a long sip of his wine, and then said, with a strange tone in his voice, "Really? You seem to be… _different_ , today. Was the training more stressful than usual? You seem a bit distracted."

He didn't miss a thing.

"Well, I am a bit," she admitted, choosing her words carefully. "It was different than what I was expecting, but not too hard. He's a good teacher."

Tyrion raised an eyebrow again at her words, but let it go, starting in on his meal, and she was grateful for the reprieve. Yes, he was her husband, but that didn't meant that she trusted him with everything…but at that thought, she wondered. How was it she couldn't tell Tyrion, but she had been able to tell Bronn about her attack? Did she truly trust the sellsword more than him? With a start, she realized that the answer was yes. She _did_ trust the sellsword more than she trusted the man who she'd been married to.

And she wondered what that meant…

* * *

 **Part 7/?**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Tyrion stepped into his working quarters with Sansa on his mind. His young wife was acting…strange. Ever since Bronn had started to tutor her about knife fighting nearly a week ago, she, and Bronn, for that matter, had been acting…odd. And the sellsword was no longer talking about their training sessions; normally, he prattled on, complaining mostly, but never silent. It was downright abnormal.

He sat down at his desk and nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the sellsword's voice ring from the darkened corner of the room.

"Wonderin' when you were plannin' on comin' in. Took you long enough."

He stepped out of the corner just enough for Tyrion to see that he was looking more haggard than usual. He sounded drunk with his less than clear words, and now that Tyrion was closer he could tell that he also _smelled_ drunk. He hadn't seen the man drunk in weeks, since he'd started training Sansa, and so he knew something was off.

"Bronn…? Why are you drunk before noon?"

The sellsword swayed on his feet and stumbled over to the table at the side, where a half-empty decanter of wine sat in the center, and he clumsily grabbed for it with one hand, nearly dropping it in the process of bringing it to his mouth, drinking straight from the container.

" 'S not my fault," he said, practically tripping over his own feet into a chair. " 'S that fuckin' wife, of yours… 's her fault. All her fault..."

He took another swig of the jug, and Tyrion walked over and quickly removed it from his hand, placing it back on the table, and then dragged another chair over next to his and sat down. Apparently he had been partially right on his hunch, and he was going to get to the bottom of the problem and _fix_ it. He would not have his sellsword drunk in the middle of the day, his lips more loose than they should be while he harbored a secret that could get all three of them killed.

"What did Sansa do, Bronn?"

The man glared at him, mad that he'd taken his wine away, and then turned his head.

Finally, he said, "She…she wants me to…teach her how to…to...shit, I won't do it. I won't!" With that bold declaration, he surged out of his chair and tried to go back and grab the wine, but he was so drunk that just Tyrion's hand on his arm had him falling back into it, and he cursed even more vehemently. "That fuckin' woman thinks I'll jus'…jus'…sit by and let her feel that way again…can'…I can't do it, T'rion. She doesn' deserve it…"

Tyrion rolled his eyes, realizing he was going to have to be more direct if he was going to get any clear answers from the man.

In an almost brutal fashion, he gripped the sellsword's wrist and pulled him in his direction as best as he could and said, over-enunciating each syllable and word so that Bronn was paying attention, "What. Does. She want. You. To. Teach her?"

With blurred eyes, Bronn looked at him, and Tyrion was taken back by the look in them. It looked almost as if the sellsword was near to tears.

"She…she was almost raped, d'you know that?"

Tyrion tensed but then carefully and softly said, "I suspected."

Bronn drunkenly nodded, and then continued, saying, "She wants me to teach her how to throw a man off of her in case…in case…" He couldn't finish the sentence and suddenly Tyrion knew what was going on, even though Bronn did not. The mercenary had come to care for the girl, hence why he was having problems with her request. In order to teach her how to throw someone off, he would have to…of course. He would have to pin her to the ground.

And knowing how Bronn taught, coldly and impersonally, through realistic attacks, not scripted ones, to do this…it would break him.

No wonder.

Tyrion slowly let go of the man's wrist, sitting back in his chair, wondering what could be done. Well, first off, he had to sober the man up. He was useless when he was drunk. However, the fact that he _was_ drunk was what worried him the most. It took a _lot_ to get the sellsword drunk; he had an exceedingly high tolerance to all forms of alcohol, and for him to be this inebriated…well, it wouldn't do well for anyone to see him this way, let alone Sansa.

He called Podrick and sent for some clean water, knowing that it would be the only way to cleanse his system of the inebriating effects of the alcohol. After he had some time to sober the man up, he would carefully broach the subject, knowing that if he said the wrong thing, the sellsword would most likely react in a violent manner.

After nearly two hours of drinking water and resting, Tyrion finally spoke up.

"Bronn. I am… _aware_ …that you and Sansa have become friends, which pleases me, of course, but I have some…questions."

The sellsword nodded.

"Of course you do. You're a bloody Lannister. I wouldn't expect anything less. Going to take away my money?"

The Lannister in question shook his head and replied, "No, but I do have to ask you about Sansa and how you've been training her. She is stronger and more sure of herself, that has not escaped my notice, but she also seems to be…happier. At least, she was," he amended. "But over the past week, something has changed. Sansa has become…withdrawn. Almost depressed. Can you enlighten me perhaps as to _why_ this has happened?"

Bronn looked at him, his smirk gone, replaced with a look of caution, his eyes wary. After a long, tense-filled moment, he said, "Let's just say that I feel that you threw me to a wolf cub, not realizing just what she could do once she sharpened her teeth for the first time."

Tyrion glared.

"That's not an answer, Bronn."

His voice was stone, forcing Bronn to stand and walk to the back corner of the room, feeling more than a bit agitated at his line of questioning. The dwarf seemed determined to get an answer out of him, but he didn't know how to tell him without him turning full-Lannister. He had no desire to see Sansa go through the same questioning, though, so he decided that it would be best if _he_ answered the questions and kept the young woman from having to deal with them.

"Fine, you want an answer? I'll give you one," he said, striding back across the room, placing his hands firmly on either side of Tyrion's chair. "It's not just that she asked me to teach her how to throw a man off of her, it's that she has to ask me that in the first place! I don't think your wife fucking gets what I've been doing for her! I'm a damn sellsword, _not_ a bodyguard, and I have gone out of my fucking way to make sure that she stays safe. Yeah, it may be for the money, but you could take that away and, for some bloody reason that I can't fuckin' well figure out, I would _still_ protect her!"

His chest heaved, as though he'd been running, and Tyrion looked at him surprise…and then a soft smile appeared on his lips, confusing Bronn as he stepped away, feeling more out of control than he'd felt in a long time.

"You're in love with her…"

Bronn froze and his shoulders tightened, and Tyrion knew he was right.

However, Bronn tried to shrug it off, shaking his head and saying, "That's ridiculous," but Tyrion cut him off, and said, "No, it's not. In fact, at the moment, _you_ are the one being ridiculous. You, who can take on ten men…and you're scared of one girl? This is not the sellsword that I know!"

He said it on purpose, trying to provoke him, unsure if it would work. Had it been the old sellsword, he would have seen right through it; Bronn had always been smart, after all, that was what made him such a good sellsword, but instead he only proved Tyrion's point when he wheeled around on his heel, his hand tightening around the hilt of his sword, fire in his eyes as he stalked towards the lord, but Tyrion was unsurprised when he said, "Girl? Is that what you think of your wife? That she's just a girl?"

Tyrion smirked.

"Perhaps I do. She hardly ever shows otherwise around me," he added, knowing it would infuriate him, and he grinned even wider as Bronn continued to react.

"Sansa Stark is not just a girl; she's a full grown woman who can handle herself better than any woman here at King's Landing! She is more formidable then ten men because she has a decent _head_ on her shoulders along with that training I've given her, with a mind that could be sharpened to rival yours! Of course, I'm fuckin' terrified of her!"

Tyrion had immediately noticed how Bronn called her Sansa _Stark_ , and his smirk softened into a knowing smile as he got down from his chair and walked over to Bronn, where he then motioned for the man to sit down. He did.

Tyrion then said, "So you _do_ have feelings for her…"

The sellsword wouldn't look at him, staring off to the side.

"So what if I do? Can't do anything about it. She's married."

"That's never stopped you before," the dwarf quipped. Bronn looked back at him and sneered, "She's married to _you_ , you fuckin' idiot! As if you'd ever think of giving her permission to-"

"And yet," Tyrion said, cutting him off, "That's _exactly_ what I'm doing."

Bronn fell silent. He looked at Tyrion, as though trying to ascertain if he was telling the truth…and, after a long moment, he simply looked away. Of course the man had reservations about it. He and Tyrion both knew that the marriage had never been consummated, but no one else did. Without consummation, they were technically not fully married, and she could leave him at any time. Bronn knew this to be true, and so to be told by the woman's husband that he had permission to, well, _seduce_ her, was a bit surreal.

Finally, after a long moment, Bronn stood back up and said, "So, maybe I have feelings. I'm not _entirely_ a cold hearted bastard, after all," and Tyrion smirked at that. "It causes a problem, though. Emotions…they're what get people killed. I can't afford to. Neither can she."

Tyrion nodded, understanding the logic behind it, but at the same time, he was worried. For Bronn.

"Yes, you may be right," the lord said, nodding and taking small sip of wine from his cup, "But, at the same time, if you don't address this issue with her, she will continue to suffer. Her focus, as of late, has been erratic, at best, and that's no good to her when she trains, now is it?"

Bronn nodded.

"Fine. I'll deal with it." He looked at Tyrion over his shoulder, his eyes dark. "I may have your permission, which is probably more than I deserve," he added, tilting his head to the side, "But that doesn't mean that I'm going to take advantage of it. Like I've said before, she may be a Lannister in name, but she is a _Stark_. And heir to Winterfell. Neither of us needs that girl to be walkin' around with her head in the clouds thinkin' she's changed the mean ol' sellsword. Because she hasn't; not really, anyway."

Tyrion gave him a long look, trying to figure him out, and then said, "What do you mean by that?"

Bronn smirked.

"Oh, I think you know. She may have brought out more of my old upbringing more than I've liked, but that doesn't change the fact that if I ever get offered better money...I _will_ leave. You know it, and so do I, but the loyal wolf doesn't. She needs a pack to survive; I don't. By training her, she thinks I'm taking her under my wing, and I can't let her think that, even if I _have_ developed feelings for the girl. I won't kill her, even for more money, so help me; but you…"

He let it linger in the air between him, and Tyrion simply nodded, understanding completely what the mercenary was telling him. However, one thing bothered him…

"When you say she brings out your old upbringing, what exactly do you mean by that?"

Bronn smirked again, turning fully around to face him, his left hand casually resting on the pommel of his sword and said, raising an eyebrow, "You've never wondered, not even once, why I seem completely unsurprised by anything I see?"

Tyrion shrugged, and replied, "Well, I assumed since you've been north of the Wall, that you've simply been around more than the average sellsword and seen more than a person might usually expect of such a man."

The sellsword laughed and nodded.

"Well, that's accurate enough. However, right now it seems I don't have much of choice but to tell you what I don't want to," he said enigmatically. "But if I tell you this," he added, "You will be at permanent risk of your neck meeting my blade at any time, am I clear?" Tyrion nodded. "Good. The reason why I've seen what I've seen, is because my father traveled. All the time. You see, we couldn't risk stayin' in one place too long because of my father…"

"Who is…?" Tyrion pressed, still not expecting much of an answer that would shock him.

Bronn gave him a grim smile.

"The direct descendant of Maegor Targaryen."

Tyrion scoffed and let out a small chuckle, shaking his head, saying, "You almost had me, Bronn! Everyone knows that Maegor Targaryen fathered no children. Besides, if he'd had any _descendants_ ," he said the word mockingly, "Their bloodline would supersede any claims that are on the Iron Throne. Which would make _you_ heir to the Iron Throne and ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, and that's simply out of the question," he added, still laughing, but then he saw the look on the sellsword's face and his laugh slowly diminished.

Finally, he said in a less than confident tone, "What proof do you have?"

"How about his bones?"

At that, Tyrion looked up at him, and then slowly helped himself into the open chair next to Bronn's empty one, not quite believing what he was hearing.

"Do you have proof that they are _his_ bones?"

Bronn nodded.

"His ring. It's still on his damn finger. It's sort of a thing in our family. Once you die, your family crest stays with you, the ring never removed, even after death." He paused and then gave his employer a dark look, his mouth drawn in a tight line. "Now do you understand why I can't take your permission?"

Tyrion nodded, obviously shaken.

"Yes. I do."

The sellsword then said, "I may be the bloody heir to the throne, that doesn't mean I want it. My father wanted me to have it, hence the reason why I left. I have no desire to take the fuckin' thing. It destroys men and ruins families. I should know." He turned away once more, looking out over the courtyard, and then added, "Sansa Stark is the heir to all of the North because of Winterfell…and, technically speakin', since I'm heir to the South…"

"…You would have the largest reign and the hold over the most formidable army the world has ever seen," Tyrion finished for him, and Bronn nodded.

"And I don't anything to do with it. Hell, _you_ could take the Iron Throne, and I wouldn't care. I just want get to get paid, plain and simple. With my job, I can always find work, and I never have to answer to anyone but myself. I honestly think there shouldn't be a damn throne. Too much power, too much control…it always corrupts. Always."

He then smirked and said, "Now, if you don't mind, milord, I think I'll go find myself a wolf."

Tyrion smiled, and nodded.

With that, the sellsword walked out while Tyrion looked on in shock. Now that he knew, suddenly things came into focus. Everything began to make sense…the reason why he'd never given a name when he'd introduced him to his father; the reason why he looked at the politics with such disdain…the reason why he had always had that confidence about him. And now that Tyrion knew, he could suddenly see the family resemblance.

He'd seen paintings of Maegor the Cruel before, and now it all fit together perfectly like the pieces of a puzzle that he didn't even know was in front of him. Bronn had the same nose, the same deeply furrowed brow and dark eyes. His hair was darker, not the lightning white blonde usually associated with the Targaryens, but it made no difference.

The arrogance.

Now _that_ he recognized as Targaryen, and to know that his own sellsword was heir to the Iron Throne…no wonder Bronn had threatened to slit his throat. If anyone found out, it wouldn't matter that the mercenary wanted nothing to do with it, they would kill him anyway. If word got out, he would the most hunted man in all of the Seven Kingdoms.

Tyrion remained sitting.

This was going to take a while to sink in.

* * *

 **Part 8/?**

 **A.N. - For reference, I used this depiction of Maegor, the Cruel, for the description. Just remove the spaces.** **40 .media .tumblr 6c0081e1d4364bd0873319ba13ef339e /tumblr _mxam99VKyk1rpizwwo1 _500 .jpg**

 **(Also, I had to do a *ton* of research into Game of Thrones bloodlines and it's SUPER CONFUSING! So, if I didn't get it right, just go with it, please? It's fan fiction, after all, so let's just say, if I'm not right about the bloodline thing, that, for the sake of my story, it _is_ true. Pleeeease? Thank you!)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Sansa sat with Cersei once more, and she patiently worked on her needlepoint as the Queen cast her dark looks every minute or so. She couldn't stand her, but she had no choice in the matter. As she silently worked, her mind was back on the sellsword and how they had finished their last sparring session, or 'dancing lesson', as Arya would have called it.

She still didn't understand why Bronn was being so distant and so abrupt with her. She thought that things had been going well, but ever since she'd asked him to teach her how to throw someone off of her, he had become cold and his actions were now reminiscent of when they'd first met. Sansa didn't like it in the least, and was certain that she was going to have to bribe him in some way to get him to teach her what she wanted to know…but at the same time, she couldn't help but wonder why he was so reluctant.

Distracted by her thoughts, her fingers slipped and she felt the needle jab the center of her palm and she winced and, closing it tightly, brought her hand to her chest.

Cersei, who was sitting fairly close by, didn't even try and hide the condescending smirk that stretched across her lips at the sight of the Stark girl suffering.

"Do be careful, Lady Lannister," she said, the sneer evident in her tone of voice. "We wouldn't want to get blood all over your _precious_ design…"

Like the woman actually cared, Sansa thought to herself as she put her needlepoint down and pressed a cloth to the small wound that was now bleeding profusely. Who knew that a needle could draw so much blood from such a small wound?

Just as she had the urge to leave, she heard familiar footsteps and looked up in shock as she saw an all too familiar sellsword approaching the two of them from the courtyard just beyond the room. He practically strutted inside, devoid of any fear around the queen mother, and gave a short bow to both of them when he walked in, giving Sansa a faint smile as he said, "Queen Cersei, Lady Sansa…pardon my intrusion, but Lord Tyrion is requesting his wife's presence. He has asked me to escort her."

Cersei looked affronted by the sellsword turned knight's words, but she gave a curt nod and simply said tersely, "Fine. Take her. And tell my brother that I wish to speak with him when he's done."

Bronn nodded.

"Of course." He turned to Sansa and offered his hand to her to help her up and she had to hide a smile at seeing Cersei's shocked reaction to his manners. "My lady?" he added, taking her hand and acting almost like a lord instead of a mercenary, and this time Sansa let the smile show as she stood and then wrapped her arm around his.

"Thank you, Ser Bronn. It is very kind of you."

He shrugged.

"Escorting a woman such as yourself isn't a burden in the least, milady. Shall we?"

She withheld the urge to laugh and nodded, letting him escort her out of the room and over towards Tyrion's offices. She didn't have to look back to know that the queen was silently fuming at his blatant mocking of his role as knight. This was one of the things that she'd missed about him over the past few days; his humor. He was the only person she knew who didn't seem to have any true fear of the Lannisters. There was respect, but no actual fear, and she hoped that she could one day have the same fortitude as he did.

After a moment, she realized that they weren't heading in the direction of Tyrion's work chambers…instead, he was steering them towards their private training area, which was odd because they weren't supposed to train until tomorrow.

"Bronn, where are we…?"

He hushed her with just a look, and so she simply let herself be led. She trusted him and knew that he would only ever take care of her.

The instant they were in what Sansa considered to be _their_ courtyard, he led her to the center and then faced himself across from her, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked down at his feet and then looked away from her, out over the water, his jaw clenched and his body tense. Finally, after a long moment, he said, "You want to know how to throw a man off you. In order to learn that, I'm going to have to do something that I don't particularly enjoy…"

He looked back at her and uncrossed his arms, putting his hands on his hips, and added, in a bleak tone, "As much as I hate to admit it, you're right. You need to know how to do this."

Bronn then stepped towards her…and then he was suddenly uncomfortably close. She tried to back up, but his hands shot out and grabbed her wrists and pulled her even closer to him, so that her body was flush against his. Her breath started to come in uneven spurts, and she felt panic starting to rise.

"Bronn, what are you-?"

He cut her off.

"Every single time I've taught you something, I've taught you through experience. I wish this one could be different, but it can't." He paused and let his words sink in, and when he saw her eyes widen, he knew that she understood. "I'm going to pin you…and I won't hold back. I can't. If you can handle me, you can handle most anyone else."

She squirmed slightly in his grip which was, surprisingly, starting to hurt. After a moment, during which she was still unsure of herself, she said, "Bronn, you're…you're hurting me…"

His grip lightened, but only for a moment. He closed his eyes and swallowed as he tightened his grip once more. His eyes opened and Sansa tried not to react to the look in them. He looked as though he was waging an internal war with himself. She'd seen that sort of look before, right before her father would decide whether or not punish Arya for one of her wild and outlandish acts of unladylike behavior…but even as hands hardened, his eyes softened.

"I know."

Two words. But they said everything.

Sansa swallowed and took a deep breath and then nodded.

"Show me."

Seeing her resolve, he nodded, and suddenly she was on her back with his legs to either side of her hips, pressing himself firmly on her thighs, with now only one hand holding both of her wrists above her head. Panic rose once more, her body instinctively starting to struggle before she calmed herself down and looked up at him, trust in her eyes.

"So…what must I do?"

He looked down at her…and for a terrifying moment she didn't see the man she knew, but then he said, "Rotate your hips to the right," and so she did, noting just how hard it was to do with his weight across her, and he nodded. "Bring up your right knee." She did. "Now," he said, leaning down, pressing himself bodily against her, "Move your left leg in and bring it up as hard as you can…"

She realized what he was asking her to do, and she hesitated, but the instant she paused, he pressed more of his weight against her, and she panicked, forgetting for a moment what he'd asked her to do, and he hissed in her ear, "You aren't getting up until you do something to stop me, girl," he said, his voice lower than she'd ever heard it, and a trickle of fear ran through her…and, at the exact same time, she felt her resolve harden.

Dammit, she was going to get him off of her, no matter what it took. She closed her eyes to block the image of him out of her mind and imagined, instead, Joffrey above her…and something inside of her snapped.

Doing exactly as he'd said before, in movements much faster than before, she rotated her hips and brought up her knee straight for his groin.

His grip came loose on her wrists as he grunted at the impact, and she kicked him once more, causing him to completely let go, and she scrambled out from underneath him and slipped his knife from the sheath on the small of his back and then straddled his back and pressed the dull side of the blade against his neck, exactly where he'd taught her to place it in previous training sessions.

Sansa waited for a long moment…and then was confused when she heard him laughing under his breath.

"Not bad, Sansa. Not bad at all."

He put a careful hand on hers and gently pulled the knife away from his throat. He then turned his body around so that she was now straddling his thighs and he gave her a broad smile; an actual, _genuine_ , smile and it took her completely off guard, causing her grip on the knife that was still in her trained hand to loosen.

She was now less confused and smiled along with him, handing him back his knife, and as he took the knife back from her their fingers brushed…and Sansa felt a familiar warmth slip down her back at the not-too-unpleasant sensation of feeling his skin on hers. He chuckled as he slid the knife back into its sheath, and then said, in a slightly breathless voice, "Well…you took to that better than I thought you would, that's for sure."

Feeling awkward at sitting on his legs, she moved to get up, trying to adjust her dress, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm and a raised eyebrow.

"I have to ask…when you closed your eyes, who were you imagining?"

Ducking her eyes, she muttered, "Joffrey," and instead of being shocked or appalled that she'd put the horrible king in his place, he nodded and said, "Good. Because of that, now I know I've gotten you to the right point." "What point is that?" Looking all too confident, he smirked and said, "You're not afraid of him anymore, are you?" She thought about it for a moment, and then her eyes widened in surprise and his smirk broadened.

"Didn't think so. You're angry now. Anger is good," he added, sitting up a bit more. "It'll keep you alive."

She moved from off his legs at that point and stood up as he, too, got up from the ground.

They stood face to face once more, and Sansa replied to his earlier words with a simple, "I hope so," and he gave her an odd look…and then did something unexpected. He lifted his right hand and placed his fingers on her jawline, tilting her head up towards his, where he stared at her with serious eyes.

"I know so, Sansa," he said, nothing but calm assurance in his gaze.

At feeling his hand on her face, she didn't know how to react except for her sharp intake of breath. She held it for as long as she could and then shakily let it out, unsure of what was happening in that moment. He hadn't said anything more, but there seemed to be something in his eyes that said that he wanted to say much more than he had. She absently ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips, and then saw his gaze move from her eyes down to her mouth…

…and he unexpectedly started to lean in, using his hand to draw her closer, and instead of resisting, she leaned into it.

His lips were on hers and she let out a soft sigh at the sensation.

It felt like coming home.

She could feel a steadiness and reassurance in the press of his mouth on hers that brought back vibrant and vivid memories of being home at Winterfell, knowing that she was protected and loved and cared for, and a tear slipped down her cheek as he pulled back slightly only to adjust his angle and lean back in to press another soft kiss to her lips, which she gently returned.

Caught up in the moment, she let him use his other hand to pull her tightly against him as he continued to kiss her, and the moment soon became one that she had no desire to leave. It was safety, it was affection, it was respect, it was home… _he_ was home. Who knew that such a simple act could bring her to tears? They continued to softly kiss for some time, until Bronn abruptly pulled back from her, as if he'd been burned, a look on his face that she didn't recognize.

He dropped his hands from her and said, "I'm sorry, milady. I shouldn't have done that."

Sansa stared at him in shock, not quite believing his words.

 _What_ had he just said? He couldn't be serious! How could he kiss her like that and say that he hadn't meant it? Was he really as heartless as she had always secretly feared? Her eyes wide, she lifted her hands and, without hesitation, she shoved him as hard as she could, disappointed when he kept his balance, and glared at him through now wet eyes.

"How…dare you!" she hissed, tightening her hands into fists at her sides. "You…you…you _kiss_ me like that and then you say that you shouldn't have? Obviously you thought that you _should_ , considering you did it in the first place, you, you…you _unfeeling_ …heartless….bastard!"

In a fit of anger, she brushed past him, moving towards the broken stairs, and felt a surge of hope through her anger when she felt him grab her arm and say, "Sansa…"

Lifting her free hand, she brushed the back of it across her eyes and gave him a look.

"What?"

His jaw clenched, his hand still firm around her upper arm, he firmly said, "It's not as simple as I would like. First of all, you're married," and at that, the wind in her sails immediately blew out, the reality of their situation coming down on her hard. "Second of all," Bronn added, "You're young. You don't know what you're feeling and I'm in all too perfect a position to take horrible advantage of it…and I won't, even _with_ your husband's blessing."

At that, Sansa's eyes went wide and she looked at the sellsword in shock.

"Tyrion…Tyrion knows about this?"

He nodded.

"Saw it long before either of us did, actually. Told me so this morning."

She didn't know how to react, but finally she managed to say, "If…if he's given you permission, then I give you mine, as well," and Bronn looked at her in shock. Just as he opened his mouth to say something in response, she cut him off with, "No. I don't want to hear excuses that you've already thought of. I know my feelings and I won't be treated like a little girl that needs to be protected, anymore. I will be a part of this relationship."

Sansa glared at him, daring him to challenge her. He stared right back…and then used his grip on her arm to pull her to him, almost violently, and she tensed up as he held her tightly against him, leaving not a breath of air between them.

"This isn't a relationship. It's a secret. If it's a secret, then it can't be a relationship, is that clear?" he hissed, and she shakily nodded, but his grip didn't lessen. "Yes, Sansa…I care for you. Far more than I should. But you need to understand that feelings are what get you killed. _Especially_ in a place like King's Landing."

His breath was hot against her face and she kept herself as still as possible, trying not to let it show just how much he could still intimidate her.

"I understand," she whispered, still feeling the same thrill as before, the sensation settling between her thighs. For some unknown reason she wanted to press herself against him, but she withheld from the impulse and instead waited for him to let go of her…but he continued to hold on.

"You don't know what it takes to keep you at arm's length, girl. These moments are all we're goin' to get. It won't be easy…hell, it'll be downright bloody difficult and fucking near impossible," he said, slowly letting go of her arm. "But, it will also be dangerous. Life and death, as it were. No one else can know. No one." He pressed his fingers to her jaw, leveling their eyes with one another and he added, "I've taught you what you need to know, and I'll keep on training you…but now there's a chance you'll have to use that training. Something I hoped it would never come to…"

He moved his fingers to her hair, and Sansa closed her eyes and pressed her head into the caress, savoring it for the few moments that she could.

"You completely confound me, girl," the sellsword muttered, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She opened her eyes at his words and said, "Is that a good thing?"

He chuckled.

"Depends on your definition of good," he said and she smiled.

"I'll take what I can get," she murmured and he smirked and then gently pulled away, offering his arm to her once more.

"I think it's time to be gettin' back, milady."

Sansa nodded.

"I think you're right."

And they left, both of them with their smiles on the inside, neither of them quite believing what had just transpired between them. This was no longer a simple alliance made out of necessity, but instead it was something more; something _better_. And it was theirs.

But, as they turned the corner, Bronn escorting her back to her and her husband's chambers, a trickle of fear ran down Sansa's spine. She remembered what Bronn had said, that it was now a matter of life and death, and she kept that in the back of her mind. Yes, she may have found love for the first time in her life…but she could not let her emotions betray her. And at that thought, her internal smile fell. She would have to pretend that nothing had changed.

He let go of her arm and bowed, as he always did, and she slipped inside her quarters and then put a hand over her mouth as she let out a choked sob at the horrible realization.

The one time in her life that she was happy, _truly_ happy…and no one could know.

Her eyes completely filled with tears by this point, she rushed into her room and threw herself onto her bed, and cried quietly into her pillow. There was no doubt in her mind that she was in love, and that was what made it so hard.

She would have to lie about it.

* * *

 **Part 9/?**

 **A.N. - So...what do you think? Have I firmly captured your attention, now? ;)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Two days later, a faint glow still in her mind about the secret that she held, she slowly undressed for her evening bath. Tyrion, knowing that she'd been training harder than usual, had asked that a bath be placed in her rooms, and Shae was going to help her.

Unsure of how faithful the woman was to her and Tyrion, she was a bit hesitant to have her help, but she carefully hid it, remembering what Bronn had told her just earlier that day.

" _Nothing can change in how you act, Sansa…I know you're more confident and sure than before, but if anyone sees you as a threat, that'll put you in their sights as a target. You need to continue acting the way you were before I started trainin' you…understood?"_

She had nodded, and he'd been satisfied enough that he'd risked a brief kiss before they left the training area, and the sensation of it still lingered on her lips. For a man with rough hands and a coarse, almost crude manner, he had a surprisingly soft manner in how he kissed…and she liked it. Sansa smiled to herself as she put her shift to the side and moved towards the tub that was filled with steaming water. As she slid into the blissfully hot bath, she was reminded of the hot springs up in Winterfell.

She closed her eyes and took a moment to remember. However, the sound of Shae walking into the room and gathering her clothes broke the spell.

"Good evening, my lady. Is your bath hot enough?"

Sansa nodded.

"Yes, Shae. Thank you, it is."

She watched for a moment as Shae headed towards the door, wondering if she should say anything more to her, but decided against it. There was no need for more conversation when there was nothing more to be said. Honestly, now that she was becoming more aware of how much the people of King's Landing resented her, she had become more aware of their true feelings.

Shae, she was now fairly certain, held a curious hostility towards her, but she didn't understand why. Sansa had done nothing to her, in any shape or form that she was aware of, so she was completely mystified as to why her handmaiden would feel that way. Of course, she was perfectly cordial, but that was as far as it went. She was cordial and polite…and nothing more. She never went out of her way to make sure that she had everything that she could want. She gave her what she needed, and that was all.

Sansa wouldn't complain, of course, as she had been assigned by the queen mother, but she couldn't help but wonder why she acted that way.

Deciding it wasn't worth the effort to think about it, she instead thought of Bronn and their…well, relationship wasn't the proper word for it, so she wasn't sure _what_ to call it. As it was, the two of them had only shared two brief kisses, and he hadn't even come close to initiating another.

But he was softer around her, in a way that she hadn't seen before.

Their training was no longer just training, as each time they met he seemed to subconsciously go out of his way to spend time with her. There was less time focused on the training and more time was being spent simply talking or sitting next to each other, their shoulders touching as they said not a word, enjoying each other's company.

After a while, Sansa realized that she had spent quite a long time in the bath, so she stood up, no longer as self-conscious about her nakedness anymore, and Shae approached her with a clean robe…but then her handmaiden suddenly stopped in front of her and stared at her, her eyes hard and almost accusing. Sansa suddenly felt exposed at the woman's almost hateful gaze and hesitantly said, "Shae, may I please have my dress?"

Shae paused a moment longer and then slipped the dry clothes over her shoulders and said, in a clipped tone, "Do you need anything else, my lady?"

Sansa shook her head.

"No, thank you, Shae. I can take care of myself from here. You may go."

At her words, the dark haired woman quickly strode out of the room, and the Stark girl stared after her, wondering why she was acting in such a strange way and why seeing Sansa, well, _naked_ , had caused her to act that way. Moving to her vanity, she picked up the brush and began to run it through her hair, her thoughts wandering once more back to Bronn. He had slowly allowed more intimacy between them, but not in the romantic way that she'd hoped. He was letting her spend more time with him and letting her reach out to him and touch him; a hand on top of his, a brush of her fingers over his arm, an embrace on rare occasions…but never another kiss.

In fact, he seemed almost…scared to let them go that far again. As if a kiss could be too much, Sansa thought in her mind…but then she remembered how he'd reacted the last time that they'd kissed and she felt a rush of warmth once more settle between her thighs. He had been so…demanding. And she'd liked it.

Softly smiling to herself, she moved forward on her seat, causing her robe to fall open around her legs, and that was when she saw it.

So subtle it was barely noticeable, she saw bruising on her thighs. Curious as to why she hadn't noticed it before, she stood up and let her robe fall open all the way and saw, with the aid of her mirror, a faint purpling along the back of her hips, as well. For a moment she was completely baffled as to how it had appeared there, but then she remembered. Bronn, in their most recent training, had been pinning her in different ways and having her escape, and he had been holding her down from behind and the marks were from where his hands had been.

Flushing in embarrassment at the thought, she closed her robe and reached for her night dress, realizing that it must have been what Shae had seen. But why would it have made her angry? That she did not understand. Deciding it didn't matter, Sansa dressed for bed and let the thoughts drop from her mind. It was Shae's problem, after all, not hers.

* * *

Tyrion had been lounging comfortably in his private chambers, enjoying a glass of wine, when Shae stormed in, her eyes flashing angrily at him, and he carefully put his drink to the side as she began to angrily hiss at him, unable to yell because of the fact that if she did, she would easily be heard by anyone who happened to pass by.

"You told me you hadn't _touched_ her!"

"Touched who?"

"Your _wife!_ " she spat out, standing in front of him with her hands clenched at her sides, looking all the world like a god who had been betrayed by her lover. "And don't tell me you don't know what I am talking about, Tyrion! I have seen it with my own two eyes!"

Trying to understand just what she had seen to make her assume such a thing, he carefully worded his next question so that he might gain insight to her seemingly righteous fury.

"Seen what, Shae?"

She rolled her eyes in a juvenile manner, reminding him of her youth, and then gave him a insouciant look, pressing her lips tightly together as though trying to keep from saying something much more poisonous and accusatory, and then finally said, "I've seen the marks on her. The ones that _you_ left behind after you… _fucked_ her. Now I understand why she's been so secretive recently, and why she can't go but a few moments without smiling. It's because of _you!_ "

Shocked at this accusation, he quickly put together the pieces of what she'd told him…and soon realized what she must be talking about. Dammit, Bronn was going to have to answer him for putting him in this position! There was no doubt in the youngest Lannister's mind that the marks on Sansa had come from training with the sellsword, and now _he_ was having to answer for it.

Keeping his voice level and steady, he replied, "Those marks were not _left_ by me, as I never share my chambers with her in the evenings and neither does she share hers with me. If you had the barest inkling of logic in your mind, you would have already come to that conclusion." Shae opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off and continued, saying, "However, I _do_ know where they _are_ from, and I can assure you that the girl is most definitely still a virgin. So, since that has been cleared up, are you going to fuck me or leave the room in a pique?"

Shae glared at him and shook her head, saying, "Your assurances mean _nothing!_ If not from you, then who? If you do not tell me, I will go to your father and tell him you never consummated your marriage…"

She left the threat lingering in the air between them and he arched an eyebrow, not quite believing her.

"Oh, you will, will you?"

She nodded.

"Yes. I will."

Tyrion took a moment to assess her tone and her body language…and was displeased when he saw that she was not in any way bluffing. Dammit, she was becoming a liability! The only way to keep her from going to Tywin would be to tell her about Bronn training Sansa. He thought about it for a moment, and then conceded. It was the only thing to be done.

"Fine. You want to know where her marks come from, then I will tell you. But," he added, emphasizing it as much as possible. "It _must_ be kept a secret. Lives are at risk if anyone finds out."

She merely arched an eyebrow at him, not intimidated by his words, and he gave her a look. She stared right back at him, and he let out a beleaguered sigh and took another sip of his wine, before finally saying, "Bronn has been training her."

Silence.

"To defend herself?" she finally asked, and Tyrion nodded, slightly surprised at how quickly she'd understood. Shae went quiet once more and an almost thoughtful look crossed her face as she said, "That does explain quite a few things, actually. The girl obviously has a crush on him because of the time he's spending with her." She let out a short sigh and then muttered under her breath, "Stupid little girl. She will get her heart broken."

Tyrion chuckled at that and replied, "Oh, I don't think so," and Shae looked up at him and immediately read the humor in his eyes and said, "Bronn likes her?"

He nodded.

"Yes…unfortunately."

Shae smirked.

"I hope you're making his life miserable," she said, stepping over to him and settling herself at his feet, running a hand suggestively up his leg, obviously forgiving him and forgetting her accusations of him from only moments before, and he smirked in response to her actions.

He tilted his head to the side and replied, "No, not particularly. Actually, I've been trying to encourage the poor bastard. He doesn't seem to know what to do with himself and I find it a rather good source of amusement," and at that Shae laughed as well and then came up on her knees and leaned into him, her hands finding his way to his belt, deftly untying it as she said, "Well, good. Now, let me make things up to you."

At her ministrations, all thoughts of Bronn and Sansa left his mind, and he felt secure in the knowledge that Shae would keep their secret safe.

* * *

Early the next morning, Shae slipped from the covers and changed back into her clothes. Silently, she left the room and headed back towards the handmaidens' chambers, taking the fastest and most hidden route that avoided all of the guards.

The instant she was back, her thoughts turned to what Tyrion had told her and she smirked.

Of course he thought she would keep the secret. She had been convincing enough, that much she knew, and she was proud of herself for maintaining her image of the dutiful, paid whore, who pretended to be in love with him.

However, this information was too good to not be used. There were several ways that she could use it against the Stark girl…and against Tyrion. She didn't care much for the sellsword, and actually respected him because he was like a whore in many ways. Sold his services to the highest bidder, not caring who it may be, and looked out solely for himself. The fact that he now had feelings for the lone wolf in the den of lions did not matter much to her.

What mattered was that she could use this information to find a way out of King's Landing. And that was all the motivation she needed to turn on her gracious benefactor, though the words were too kind of a description for him.

As the other handmaiden's woke, she smiled to herself.

Maybe not today, but soon. Soon she could use it to find a way out and back home…consequences be damned.

* * *

 **Part 10/?**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

The next morning, Tyrion stepped from the courtyard into his working quarters, and smirked when he saw Bronn already inside, sitting in the only other chair in the room, a faint smile on his face, his feet propped up on Tyrion's desk, peeling an apple with a knife in one long, continuous strip.

Tyrion sat down across from him, absently shuffled a few papers and then said, "What brings you by this morning?"

The sellsword looked up at him at his words and finished peeling the apple and then proceeded to take a bite.

After a long moment of chewing and then swallowing, he said, "Your wife and I will be havin' another trainin' session, today. Involves some new moves…" He paused and took another bite, and then dropped his feet from the desk and leaned forward in his chair, putting his elbows on his knees as he added, with a serious look, "And it will involve some…risk."

Tyrion chuckled and replied, almost flippantly, "You mean more so than what you're doing right now? My, I didn't think that was even _possible_ ," and he pulled a document towards him and began to sign it, not taking any more notice of the man across from him…until a knife suddenly made itself known in the stack of papers just to his left. Tyrion glared at him, and then pulled the knife out and handed it back to him, saying, "Alright, you have my attention. What sort of risk are we talking about?"

Bronn stood up and began to slowly pace as he spoke.

"The sort of risk where she might be…physically hurt." Tyrion glared at him, and simply said, "Explain."

Bronn nodded and stopped pacing as he said, "I want to teach her some offensive fighting. In case she has no choice but to attack. It involves some…techniques…that aren't, strictly speaking, entirely without the possibilities of broken bones if done wrong."

Tyrion arched an eyebrow and sat back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him, thinking it over.

After a long moment, he looked up at his friend and asked, "Do you plan on _letting_ her get hurt?" Bronn shook his head. "Then I don't see an issue."

At that, Bronn nodded his head, and turned to leave, but Tyrion's conscience about having told Shae about the sellsword training his wife, he called to him. The man stopped and turned towards him, his hand resting, as it usually did, in a deceptively casual manner on the hilt of his sword. Tyrion looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out where to start, opening and closing his mouth a few times before Bronn rolled his eyes and said, "Oh, just spit it out, already."

Grimacing, he nodded and finally managed to say, "Shae came to me last night accusing me of bedding my wife, as Sansa _apparently_ has marks on her that would indicate that she had been… _amorous_ with someone recently, in a rough manner of speaking. I had no choice but to defend my wife's honor and tell Shae the truth that you are training her…"

Bronn was silent.

So silent, in fact, that it worried Tyrion to some extent. The sellsword looked pensive and his shoulders had tightened and pulled back. Bronn then stared at him, and as Tyrion saw his hand tighten on the hilt of his sword, for a brief moment he felt a flicker of fear, certain that the mercenary was going to draw on him…but then his hand relaxed and Tyrion let out the breath that he had been holding in.

"Dammit," Bronn said, shaking his head in suppressed anger.

"What did you expect me to do? Let her believe that I was secretly fucking my wife behind her back?

Bronn's face tightened, and he said, "You could have told her…" But then he paused, obviously not finding the words, causing Tyrion to smirk.

"Precisely," replied Tyrion to the unspoken suggestion. "Nothing I told Shae would have kept Sansa safe except for the truth. So, you may be angry with me, but I honestly don't give a shit. So long as I'm still paying you, you'll still keep Sansa safe."

Bronn said nothing, but from the way his jaw was clenched and the way he dutifully avoided the Lannister's gaze, it told Tyrion that he agreed, but was still upset by the situation. Tyrion simply rolled his eyes and went back to his papers. Lord Baelish had been hounding his steps recently implied that he was trying to change how Tyrion was running the kingdom's finances. He was also fairly certain that Petyr was trying to find out more about Sansa and if she could be…influenced.

Had Sansa not been training with Bronn, Tyrion might not have been so sure, but because of the sellsword's influence, he was certain that she was safe. Safer than she had ever been before, actually.

Baelish, however, he knew had a strange determination when it came to Stark girl. Tyrion suspected that it was because of her uncanny resemblance to her mother at that age, but, despite his wariness, he trusted Bronn to keep her safe.

* * *

Bronn strode from Tyrion's offices, heading towards the handmaiden's quarter. He was more than a bit familiar with them, actually, but it had been a long time since he'd frequented that part of the castle. He was going to give Shae a piece of his mind, and, quite possibly, some of his sword.

Despite all of the trust that Tyrion seemed to put in her, the sellsword knew better than that.

He had meant what he'd told Sansa so many weeks before; Shae would sell anyone out for the right price, same as him…and he was also fairly positive that she wasn't above blackmail. In fact, Bronn was certain of it. The woman had very few morals, after all.

The sellsword quickened his pace, determination in his stride, ignoring the looks he received as he stormed into the rooms, his hand once more going to the hilt of his blade. Looking past the half-dressed and fully naked women, he found her, lounging casually at the side of the room, her breasts on full display as her violet dress fell lazily around her waist as two women lay next to her, completely oblivious to the fact that there was a man in their presence.

Looking her square in the eye, he strode up to her.

"You and I need to have a talk," he said simply.

Shae raised an eyebrow at his words, but then said, in a bored tone, "Fine. Talk," not even bothering to try and cover herself up.

Bronn shook his head.

"Not here."

Again, Shae raised her eyebrow, but after a silent stare down, during which the women proceeded to strip down and involve themselves in some interesting acrobatics, she finally acquiesced and slowly rose, taking her time as she drew her dress back over her shoulders. He waited, not showing any hint of emotion at her actions. She wasn't his type anyway.

She followed him out of the women's quarters and towards one of the outer courtyards that was partly hidden by the tall hedges that lined the far pathway. The instant they were around the corner, completely unseen, Bronn whirled on her and pressed his curved knife to her throat, holding his other hand over her mouth, and he hissed out, "Tyrion may trust you, but I don't. You even _think_ about breathin' a word of this to anyone…I _will_ kill you. Is that understood?"

Just from her eyes, the sellsword knew that she didn't believe him…so he pressed his knife just hard enough against her skin for it to bite, but not leave a mark.

"Who were you going to tell?" he asked, trying to figure out who she had been planning on selling them out to. "Lord Tywin?" No reaction. "Lord Varrys, perhaps?" Still nothing. He thought about it a moment longer…and then smirked. "Ah, so it would be Lord Baelish, then."

A faint reaction. Yes, the bitch had been planning on selling them out to the weasel. How fitting.

Shae, just like so many others in King's Landing, knew of Lord Baelish's ill-timed and practically non-existent romance that he'd once had as a youth with the unparalleled beauty that was Sansa Stark's mother, Catelyn Stark, nee Tully. Baelish was the perfect choice to tell. He would pay well, and he would essentially put a perfectly placed three-pronged wedge between Tyrion, Sansa, and Bronn in one fell swoop should he know about their…arrangement.

Feeling a surge of anger, Bronn reigned it in for a moment and then lowered his voice.

"We may be quite a bit alike, you an' I," he said, letting her know just how serious he was by moving his hand from her mouth to her neck, tightening his fingers just above where his blade rested. "We both sell our talents to the highest bidder. Money before people, our own lives before money, and, most of the time, I'd agree with you…but let me explain somethin' to you, _whore,_ " he said, emphasizing the word, "Sansa is not to be touched. Do you understand."

She sneered and hissed out, "She's just a girl! She has no place here. If it weren't for Tyrion, she would be dead already!" Shae struggled slightly in his grip, and then added, with a dark look in her eyes, "A little wolf cub does not belong in a den of lions!"

He smirked and replied, without even thinking about what he was saying…

"Who are no match for the dragon guarding her…"

At his words, her look of smug arrogance, which always seemed to linger in her eyes, if not on her lips, completely vanished, and was replaced with a look of pure shock. At her look, he realized what he'd inadvertently revealed and that Shae had been intelligent enough to pick up on.

She whispered, "You…you…are…?"

He glared at her and tightened his grip on her throat and leaned in, whispering into her ear, "You wouldn't be the first woman I've killed. Far from it, actually," he added, sliding his knife back into its' sheath behind his back as he easily held her up with the hand pressed to her trachea while her fingers scrabbled helplessly against his wrist, trying in vain to pry him off of her, her eyes going wide in desperation. "But here's somethin' you need to know. So long as I live and breathe, I will keep Sansa Stark from harm. She will be under my watch and care, and _no one_ will touch her… _especially_ not that man."

They both knew who he spoke of, and, after a steely moment of silence, she finally nodded, and he let her drop back down.

Coughing and rubbing her neck, she glared at him from the corner of her eye and then said, in a slightly less than confident tone significantly hoarser than before, "This isn't over, sellsword."

He smirked back at her.

"No, I suspect it isn't, whore _._ "

And with that, they parted ways. As Bronn slowly wandered along the paths, heading towards Sansa's quarters, he thought about what Shae was planning to do. Go to Baelish with the information. If she went to him, how would the weasel react? What would his actions be?

Bronn adeptly came to the conclusion that Baelish would try to approach Sansa while she was on her own, in hopes of swaying her mind over to the idea that she was simply being _used_ by Bronn and Tyrion, and that they were not really her companions or people to be trusted. At first, the sellsword tried to think of a way to keep that from happening…but then he smiled to himself as a rather brilliantly ingenious plan formed in his mind.

No. He would _let_ it happen.

Instead, he would warn Sansa ahead of time, so that she would be on Bronn's side when the moment came…but Lord Baelish didn't have to know that. If Bronn knew anything at all about the man, he knew that the man would do _any_ thing to keep Sansa safe, which meant that the man had to have an escape plan at the ready to present to her the minute that he got her alone.

The sellsword already had his escape plan in place, but with Sansa's help, they could use Baelish's plan to get them _both_ out of King's Landing, without Lord Baelish being any the wiser about it.

In fact, he realized with a faint grimace, it was the only actual plan that would work to keep Sansa safe. However risky it might be, it would be the best way to ensure her safety. So long as she stayed in King's Landing, she would never be safe, and he couldn't let her leave the place without him. No…never without him. He would stay with her.

That thought left an unsettling feeling in his chest, but he brushed it off and headed towards her quarters, thinking of the new plan once more in his mind.

With a smirk on his lips, Bronn picked up his pace. He had a woman to train, after all.

* * *

 **Part 11/?**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Sansa grunted as Bronn swung his sword fiercely downwards, hitting against her shorter blade, but she quickly retaliated, swinging upwards and moving inwards, stepping into his space, giving him no room to strike with his longer blade and she jabbed him in the ribs with her free left hand and then proceeded to use the move that he had taught her and swung her right leg up, using the leverage of her knee on her chest to throw him off balance just enough so that she could swing inwards and place a strategic blow to inside of his right knee, which brought him down to the ground.

As soon as he was on the ground, she delivered a decisive strike to his chest, right where his heart would be, turning the blade at the last possible second…and then she grinned.

"I believe you're dead, Ser Bronn."

He let out a breathless laugh, and he nodded.

"I believe I am, Lady Sansa."

Moving from off of him, she held out a hand and he smirked as he took it and stood back up. He pressed a quick kiss to it, and then proceeded to adjust his tunic and looked back at her, an interesting look in his eyes. Unsure of what to make of it, she busied herself by putting her blade back in its sheath, on the inside of her left leg.

He had given it to her not too long ago and instructed that she keep it on her at all times, now that she was familiar with how to handle it without injury. Sansa had protested at first, but he had insisted, so she simply gave in and did as he asked. It had taken some getting used to, of course, but after a while, she was no longer aware of the extra weight on her leg. And, when she went to take it off at night before she went to bed, to put it under her pillow, it felt strange, and she had come to sympathize with Bronn in how he felt towards his weapons. They became a part of you, and she understood that now.

As she straightened and re-tightened one of her braces, which she could now do on her own, he approached her and said, "You've taken well to everything I've thrown at you, Sansa…I'm proud of you."

A faint blush colored her cheeks and she turned her eyes down towards the ground, still unsure of how to accept compliments when they were given. Bronn rarely gave them to her, so when he did, she was always taken by surprise.

He put firm fingers under her chin and raised her eyes to his and added, with a smirk, "But I can still beat you."

She rolled her eyes and replied, "Of _course_ you can, you're a sellsword, after all. It wouldn't do well if you showed me _all_ of your tricks, now would it?" She smirked back at him and he felt his chest inwardly swell with pride at how she'd teased him right back for once, instead of blushing. Her backbone was finally showing.

Bronn stared at her a moment longer, and then said, "Just so you know, Shae knows about us." At that, she looked up at him, her eyes wide, and just as she was about to stutter out an apology, he waved a hand a cut her off, saying, "It's not your fault, girl. She saw the bruises and assumed they were from… _other_ activities."

This time, she did blush, ducking her head and staring at her hands, and he was the one to roll his eyes.

"Oh, come off it, girl. You and I both know it isn't true, so there's no reason to get all weird about it now." He walked over to the low wall and sat down on it, crossing his arms over his chest and glancing out over the water as he then said, "Tyrion trusts her, but I don't, so I want you to keep your guard up when you're around her, alright?"

Curious as to why he'd mentioned her husband, she stepped closer to him and asked, "Tyrion? What does he have to do about this?"

He glanced back at her and then remembered. That's right. Tyrion had been keeping the secret of his and Shae's relationship _away_ from Sansa, and Bronn had just inadvertently revealed their relationship. Well, considering that Tyrion had outed _his_ relationship with Sansa to the whore, he felt no guilt about accidentally revealing _their_ relationship.

He let out a sigh and said, "You didn't honestly think you were the only woman in his life, did you?"

Bronn said nothing more than that, and let Sansa come to the conclusion on her own…and when she did, instead of the reaction of a fifteen-year-old girl, he was given the reaction of a mature young woman, and it took him by surprise when she sat down next to him, and said, casually leaning back on her hands, "I guess it makes sense, after a fashion, that he would have someone besides me. I mean…I'm not _stupid_ , but…I have to admit that I wasn't expecting it to be Shae."

Sansa paused for a moment, looking out over the water as well, squinting her eyes in the bright afternoon sun, and Bronn carefully studied her profile, still silently astounded that a woman like her could ever harbor any feelings for a sellsword like him.

She then said, in a quiet voice, "No wonder Shae doesn't like me. I always wondered why…"

Bronn, forgetting his usual demeanor, moved closer to her, their thighs pressing against each other, and said, "It's not just that, Sansa. Shae is not to be trusted, no matter what the lord might say. I believe she means to tell Lord Baelish about our…" He couldn't use the word relationship. That would make it seem more important than it really was. So instead he said, "Arrangement. I'm fairly certain she means to use it as leverage to escape from King's Landing and head back home."

Sansa looked at him, her green eyes locking with his, and he waited for her to jump to the woman's defense…but she didn't.

Instead, after a long moment of expectant silence, she said, in a steady and clear voice, "Lord Baelish will come to me, won't he," and Bronn nodded.

"Yes, I expect he will."

Slightly surprised that she had figured it out so quickly, he remained quiet, and was not disappointed when she then said, in a tone much more befitting her age, "This is so stupid." He didn't reply, but she continued any way. "All you're doing is teaching me how to defend myself so that I'm no longer afraid to walk alone, and now she just thinks that I'm a stupid little girl with a silly crush." She paused and looked down at where their legs were touching, and then said, in a voice so soft, he could barely hear it, "But it's so much more than that…"

Bronn stared at her, wondering what she meant by her words, but did nothing, unsure of how to react to such an ambiguous statement. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, however, he shifted, moving his hand to cover one of her own, where it rested on her knee.

A faint smile appeared on the corner of her mouth and he felt a smirk appear on his own in response to it.

Gently squeezing her hand, he said, "Perhaps it is…but, for right now, we need to make a plan."

Her eyes snapped back up to his from where she'd been staring at their hands, and from her furrowed brow, he could tell that she was genuinely confused by his words. And from the tension that he could feel in her hand, he knew that she was worried.

"A plan? A plan for what?"

He gave her a look.

"For getting out of King's Landing." He could tell that she was about to protest, so he cut her off, saying, "The cunt's wedding is in less than a week, and we need to get you out of here before then, milady, and Lord Baelish is the perfect way to do that." The same look of confusion colored her face, so he explained. "Baelish has a weakness for you, Sansa, and I intend for us to use it to get you out of here. To get us _both_ out of here."

At the word 'both', he felt her relax under his touch, and he suddenly understood the tension that he'd felt in her from before. She had been upset because she thought that he wasn't going with her…and, at that thought, he realized just how much they had come to rely on the other person. All too quickly, Bronn was finding that he no longer thought of just himself, and that, in his mind, he had begun using the words 'we' and 'us', and very little of the noun 'I'. The Stark girl was certainly changing him, that was for sure.

A wave of nervous energy hit him at that thought, so he quickly stood up and pulled away, turning his head to avoid seeing the hurt look that he knew she was giving him at his abrupt actions, and then said, in a brisk and clipped tone, "He'll approach you somewhere where it's crowded. It will be the only way he can make sure that he can get you away from me. When he does this…let him."

Sansa moved as if to stand, but then stayed where she was and replied, in a hesitant tone, "L…Let him? But I thought…"

He shook his head.

"We want him to think that I'm using you. Let him think that you want nothing more than to get away from me. Make him think that I've been…" Bronn paused, unable to quite finish his sentence, hating himself for putting her in the position that he was going to put her in, but then tightened his jaw and finished it. "…Forcing my affections on you."

She stared at him, her mouth slightly open in shock, and he wasn't surprised when she suddenly surged to her feet, anger in her eyes…but he was shocked when one of her surprisingly strong hands wrapped around the back of his neck to pull him to her lips.

At a kiss that was almost violent in its' execution, he grunted in surprise, but then gave into it, their brief tussle turning into something meltingly sinful, as her lips parted on a gasp, Bronn taking shameless advantage of it, slipping his tongue between them, finally tasting her properly for the first time…and, oh, seven kingdoms, she was _divine_. Throwing himself into it, no longer holding himself back, as he had been for the last week, he roughly grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him, grateful for the similarity in their heights as her thighs pressed up deliciously against his.

She let out a gasp and he understood why, as he felt the 'v' of her legs line up perfectly with a certain part of him that was taking definite interest.

"Bronn," she breathed out, and something about the pleading in her voice seemed to short-circuit all of his rational thought, as he then proceeded to slide his hands down her back, causing her to arch into him further, and then lifted her so that she had no other choice but to wrap her legs around his waist.

Her weight throwing him a bit off balance, he stumbled backwards, sitting soundly on the stone wall, causing her to press even more firmly against him, forcing him to let out a groan of his own at the feeling of her above him, better than anything that he'd ever imagined…not that he'd ever imagined this. Well, perhaps in a few passing thoughts, but never anything quite as intense at what was happening at that moment.

Her lips captured his once more and the instant he felt her sliding her tongue willingly against his, he bucked up into her, unable to stop the instinctive movement, his blood pounding through his ears.

She gasped a second time, and, not thinking about what he was doing, his fingers dug into her hips and pulled her more firmly against him as he pushed against her a second time. At the motion, her head fell back…and she willingly pushed back against him.

All logical and rational thought gone, they continued their dance, back and forth, an astounding friction of heat building between them, as well as other things, and he almost lost it when he felt Sansa's hands move down his sides, her thumbs slotting perfectly into divots of his hips as she moved them just below the top edge of his trousers. For a novice, she was certainly a natural when it came to this sort of thing.

Her hips began to languidly roll above him, in a motion that had his ears ringing and parts of him hardening. Back and forth, back and forth, in a rhythm that caught them both by surprise in its deliberate slowness. His breath still shaky, he leaned in and pressed an open mouthed kiss to her neck and the sound that escaped her lips was so achingly perfect, that he pushed just a little bit harder…and then, from the way she shuddered above him, he knew what had just happened, and slowly stilled.

"Bronn…"

His fingers tightened on her hips for a moment, and then he pulled back, looking at her with wide eyes. In a low murmur, he said, "Dammit, girl, you'll be the death of me."

Instead of looking abashed or embarrassed by his words or their actions, she smirked, and said, "At least you know that you're not the one forcing your affections…"

At her words, he looked at her in shock…and then started to laugh. Sansa just smiled at him as he did, waiting for him to stop, and eventually his laughter died down and he gave her a look of such soft affection, anyone who knew him would have thought it utterly out of character…but something about this girl just made him that way.

Reaching up and brushing a strand of hair from her eye, he said, "Can't argue such a well thought-out argument, milady." He smirked at her, and she ducked her head, blushing…and something finally made sense to him in that moment. Lifting her head with a finger under her chin, he smirked at her a second time…and, again, she blushed, and that was when he knew. Shaking his head, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth and said softly, "Say yes to Baelish."

She stiffened at his words, but before she could move off of him, he held her firmly with a hand on her waist, and said into her ear, "I already have a way out, Sansa. I always have…but now, I have you to think about. And Lord Baelish can get you out. Safely. I'm certain of it."

He pulled back and gave her a look, arching an eyebrow.

She stared right back at him and then slowly nodded, saying, "I understand. It's…I just…I don't like being away from you…"

His look softened slightly and he simply let out a sigh and helped her off his lap so that they instead were both standing, barely an inch between them. He reached out a hand and placed it on her neck, and she brought up her own hand to cover his, their fingers interlocking, and so he lingered longer than he should, savoring the moment for what it was. Rare and precious.

"I know."

Two words, that was all, but they seemed to be enough reassure her.

After a long moment, they dropped their hands, and Sansa moved to change her clothes. This time, however, he didn't turn around. Even though he couldn't see her, for a brief moment, he saw a flash of skin, pale and unblemished, and he smirked.

 _Fucking tease_ , he thought to himself. But, of course, he wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

 **Part 12/?**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

The next morning, Sansa smiled to herself as she made her way to the market in King's Landing, Tyrion at her side, Bronn following at a discreet distance. The sellsword may have been following at a distance, but she knew where he was at all times. It was one of the things that he'd been teaching her, actually; how to know when you were being followed. He'd discovered that she had a natural talent for it and had helped her hone it, so now it was impossible for her to _not_ notice him, even when he was at his best.

She didn't bother to look at her husband, knowing that he knew that Bronn was following them. She had thought about telling him last night about Bronn's plans to run away with her…but then realized that if he knew, he would have to lie if he was questioned after they had both escaped, and they couldn't risk it. So, he was in the dark about the most important part of their plans. He knew about Baelish, of course, but they had decided to keep Baelish's plan a secret from him, and Tyrion had agreed. The less he knew, the better.

Sansa slowed when they approached a fruit stand, smiling when she saw the familiar fruits from up north. Grasping one in her fingers, she placed a few coins in the hand of the old woman who stood behind it, and then carefully let herself be maneuvered further away from Tyrion, though keeping him in the corner of her eye. As soon as he was far enough away, she saw Baelish make his move. He sidled up next to her, his fingertips firmly grasping her elbow.

"Lady Sansa," he said smoothly. "Are you sure that it's safe for you to be out here on your own?"

Straightening her spine, she remembered what Bronn had told her to say, and said, "I need to get away, as you may understand, Lord Baelish. I find it very hard to…to breathe while at the castle."

He gave her a genuine smile, and she knew she had won some of his confidence when he replied, "I understand _completely_ , Lady Sansa." He then used his grip on her arm to guide her over to a more hidden corner and Sansa tried to hide the apprehension that immediately descended on her in the form of an uneasy churning in her stomach. "How has your new husband and new bodyguard been treating you?"

Sansa was slightly surprised that he knew about Bronn, but she hid her reaction by dropping her eyes to the ground and taking on an embarrassed air. Bronn had told her that for someone who couldn't lie, when you had to, never look the person you were lying to in the eye.

Fidgeting to add to the idea that she was uncomfortable, she said, "It's been fine…tolerable, even."

Baelish let out a low chuckle and shook his head, dropping his hand from her arm, and whispered conspiratorially into her ear, "Do you really expect me to believe that, Sansa?"

She managed not to smile when she heard that. It was just as Tyrion and Bronn had both told her; Lord Baelish wanted nothing more than to see himself as her rescuer, and that as long as she played the role of helpless victim he would come straight to her and do all of the work, so long as she kept up the image.

"No, I suppose not," she said, looking properly out of spirits. "I feel…caged. Controlled." He nodded, so she continued, drawing from what Bronn had told her to say, but in her own words. "Lord Tyrion is kind, but…he's a _Lannister_. I cannot trust him, no matter how much kindness he shows me. And Bronn…" Sansa hesitated, her gut clenching with what she was being forced to say. She _hated_ that she had to talk about Bronn in such a horrible way, but she forced her way through it. "…he has made…advances; unwanted ones."

At this, Baelish's brow rose and he stepped in closer.

"Does Lord Tyrion know about this, Sansa?"

She shrugged and replied, "I don't know, but…but I do know that Lord Tyrion is not entirely, well, unaware of it. He does not have the normal view of virtue in a marriage. He…he and Shae…no, I've said too much."

Petyr put a hand over both of hers and said, in a voice that sounded entirely sincere, "I'm well aware of Lord Tyrion's…dalliance with your handmaiden. I am sorry that you are aware of it, as well, but I hope that I may be able to help you."

She looked up at him, confusion furrowing her brow, a very easy expression for her to fake as she was used to feeling it on a regular basis. She then asked in a heated whisper, "What do you mean, help me? I can do nothing, my Lord. I am married to the brother of the soon to be king, and he is no more my _husband_ than Bronn is my bodyguard. I will be forced to share his bed, soon enough, just so I can bear yet _another_ child with the Lannister name, while it is more likely that I'll be savaged by his lowlife sellsword and bear _his_ child instead!"

The last part of this was said in a hissed out whisper, with enough vitriol to even convince herself that it might be true. It sickened her to talk about Tyrion and Bronn this way, but _especially_ Bronn. She was in love with him, of that she was certain, and this was the one part of the plan that she hated the most; it made her feel ill.

But it worked.

"Sansa," he said, putting a hand on her face in what he probably believed to be a tender manner. "I can _help_ you. I can get you out of King's Landing; _safely._ I swear it on your mother's life."

She looked at him, and then gently pressed her head into his hand, knowing that Baelish would sense it as a victory. From the way his eyes lit up, it worked…but her stomach rolled once more. She knew that he didn't see her, that he only say her mother, and she swallowed back the bile that rose in the back of her throat as he grabbed her hand with his free one and pressed a kiss onto the back of it, whispering, "I will get you out, Sansa. I swear an oath to the old gods that I will keep you safe."

In that moment, she knew that she had hooked him. But also in that moment, she knew that he meant every single word of what he'd said…and it was strange to put the image together with the image of the man that she knew to be a snake.

He dropped her hand and then escorted her back to the main way of the market, and she took her time heading back towards Tyrion, who now had Bronn flanked at his side, both of them looking ridiculously out of place, Tyrion more so than Bronn. They both gave her a look as she approached, but with a minute shake of her head, they said nothing and headed back to the main caste of King's Landing, knowing that they would wait to talk until they were sure they would not be over heard.

As soon as they were back in her and Tyrion's shared quarters, she turned to them and said, in a hushed voice, still wary about being heard, "He's going to get me out."

Both of them gave her a soft smile, Bronn's looking more like a smirk, and then Tyrion said, "I knew you could do it, Sansa. Now, all we have to do is wait. Baelish will seek you out again, and when he does, do exactly as you have been and everything will be fine."

Sansa nodded, and then looked up at Bronn, whose smirk had suddenly diminished. Sensing the tension that was unavoidably filling the room, the diminutive lord stepped out of it, heading towards his other private chambers, leaving the two of them alone. Finally, after a long, awkward filled silence, Bronn spoke.

"So, he expects inappropriate conduct, doesn't he?"

She nodded a second time, casting her eyes to the floor. At the sound of him clearing his voice, however, she brought her eyes back up to his and saw a soft look in them that took her off guard, and then the sellsword said, "I'll follow you. The instant he comes close to us, I may…I may have to attack you."

She nodded one last time and then said, "I trust you."

He looked taken aback by her words, but just when she thought that he would simply turn and leave, he took two steps forward, closing the distance between them and placed an unexpectedly passionate kiss on her lips, and she groaned and melted into it, languidly pressing her hips up against his as he took his time ravaging her mouth in a way that he never had until today. One of his hands confidently cupped her hip and pulled her tighter to him, his fingers almost bruising in their strength.

Sansa could feel a familiar heat between her legs and she let out a soft sigh into his mouth, eagerly anticipating his next move.

However, his body suddenly turned hard and unforgiving, harsh, even, both of his hands grabbing her now, his fingers pressing almost brutally into her waist.

She pulled back far enough from their kiss to say, "Bronn, what-?", but he cut her off, moving one hand to cover her mouth, and used the force of his body to shove her up against the wall, and then she saw his eyes. At the black, empty look that she saw, she felt something like ice water wash through her veins, tamping down rather fervently her previous reaction to his proximity. She was no longer on fire from passion, but frozen in fear, her eyes wide.

He towered over her, pressing his body against her in an entirely _un_ welcome way.

Bronn then leaned in and hissed in her ear, "You are going to see a side of me that you will not like, Sansa. I am only warning this once. Understand I don't mean it…but also understand, I might not be able to control it. It is _dangerous_ ," he added, stressing the syllables of the word, engraining it in her mind. "It is unpredictable and volatile. It's who I was long before I ever met you…but it's not who I am now. Do you understand?"

Sansa nodded as best she could under his grip, her eyes still wide, and he slowly let go.

"Now," he said, smoothing her dress over her hips, removing the wrinkles of where he'd gripped her just a bit too hard, "I can't tell you how I'm making it out of King's Landing, but I can tell you where we'll meet; in the forest just west of Rosby."

She looked at him and simply said, "Alright. When…when will you leave?"

He gave her a look and then reached up and brushed a rogue strand of hair from her face as he said, "Before you. I don't want to draw any suspicion."

"But…but that means I'll…I'll…"

The sellsword nodded, hearing the words she hadn't been able to force past her lips.

"Yes."

They both knew what hadn't been said. She would be on her own. It was terrifying for both of them, but more terrifying for Bronn than anyone else. Leaving Sansa alone and unprotected in King's Landing with Lannister lions ready to tear her throat out at any given moment was the _last_ thing that he wanted to do…but he had no other choice. He had taught her well and Tyrion would give her the rest of what she needed.

Finally, after a long moment of silence, she asked, "How soon?"

He gave her a sad look.

"In three days."

She stared at him in shock, not quite believing it, but before she could even throw up a word of protest, he quickly explained, "Sansa, I _have_ to. I need to make sure that the path is clear for us, do you understand? This was supposed to be for one man alone, but has now become a journey for two, and I need to make sure it is clear of anyone who would do you harm or use you for leverage against the Lannisters. Do you understand?"

Sansa nodded, and then, just as he pulled away to head for the door, she grabbed him and pulled him to her for one last kiss.

Unlike all of their other ones, it was soft, slow, and full of unspoken promises.

They both pulled back from it agonizingly slowly, hands clinging, hers around his neck, his on her waist, both of them reluctant to have it end. It was bittersweet because they both knew that it would be their last embrace until they were together once again when she escaped. He leaned slightly so that his head gently rested against her own, and then whispered in an almost broken voice, "By the gods above…remember your footwork, stupid girl."

She let out a watery laugh, and nodded and replied with, "As long as you remember to watch your back, Bronn."

He nodded, and then pressed one last kiss to her forehead before abruptly turning and leaving the room, the heat of him still lingering on her body long after he'd gone.

Tyrion never returned that night, and for that Sansa was grateful. She cried herself to sleep, the only reassuring thought in her mind being that Bronn could take care of himself, and that she _would_ be with him, no matter what it took.

* * *

 **Part 13/?**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Bronn woke up all too early the next morning, his senses on high alert after his encounter with Lady Sansa the night before. The woman was magnetic, whether she realized it or not, and he could not seem to get free of her, no matter how he tried. Not that he particularly wanted to, of course. In his agitation, he made his way down the servants' corridors, wanting to avoid anyone of the main castle. He was in a mood and was liable to take it out on anyone who crossed his path.

The sellsword went over the plans in his mind; his own plan to escape King's Landing, and Lord Baelish's plan to secret Sansa away.

He wasn't entirely sure what the weasel of a man had planned, but he had a few vague ideas as to what it could be. He knew of a few men who might still be swayed to help out a Stark, especially for one as fair as Sansa. It wouldn't take entirely too much convincing, to be honest.

However, what bothered him most and had him on edge at that very moment was the thought of Shae getting to Lord Baelish before Baelish could get the girl out. The instant that Petyr knew about his and Sansa's, well… _relationship_ , and he used the term loosely, they were done for, and Bronn could not risk them being caught. If Baelish knew, then he would stop in any attempt to help her and instead use the information to blackmail either one, or both of them, and use them for his own devious purposes, and, again, Bronn could not risk it.

A plan steadily forming in his mind, he made his way towards the handmaidens' quarters…but stopped just short of it, hiding himself so that he could see the entrance and the comings and goings of the girls without being seen.

The only way to make sure it didn't happen was to stop it before it could.

Bronn was going to talk to the bitch, and see if he could show her a better arrangement that would be mutually beneficial to _all_ of them. Of course, he had no idea what he could offer her, but it was better if he tried, instead of not trying at all. He knew that Sansa would expect it of him, even if it was against his nature. He absently caressed the blade tucked away in his left sleeve, making sure that it still slid easily into his grasp, not wanting to take any risks. The sellsword was, of course, prepared for all circumstances.

An unbearably long amount of time later, Shae walked from the handmaidens' quarters, her shoulders pulled back imperiously, the long hem of her red dress catching in the breeze, at which Bronn darkly grimaced at. A portent of what was to come, he was certain, but of whose fate, he was entirely unsure.

As Shae turned, he discreetly followed, silently grateful that she was traveling the less guarded paths that had no other souls among them, leaving the two of them undisturbed. After a while, however, he soon realized where she was heading and he reluctantly tightened his fingers around the hilt of his blade.

She was heading to Baelish's official quarters.

Bronn let out a wearying sigh, but steeled his jaw and lengthened his stride.

She had to be dealt with.

His long legs effortlessly caught up to her, where he then wrapped an unforgiving hand around her arm, dragging her away from her intended path and towards a disused dock, where the remains of an old fishing boat still lingered in the water, the rope tying it to the dock frayed and ready to turn to dust at the slightest touch. His other hand, which he had clapped firmly over her mouth, stifling any sounds that she might make, dropped, and the instant it did, her eyes snapped up to his, flashing dangerously.

"What do you think you are _doing_?" she hissed at him, finally having the semblance of thought to wrench her arm from his grasp.

Bronn glared at her.

"You're going to Lord Baelish."

It wasn't a question, and she knew it, but she stared back at him, an eyebrow raised in silent defiance of his words, as if daring him to say anything more…so he did.

"I can't let you do that."

At that, she scoffed, and said, as she insouciantly tossed her hair over her shoulder, "And you think you are going to stop me? You think of yourself too highly, _sellsword_ …" She said the last word like a curse, practically spitting it out, her shoulders rounding like a snake about to strike.

He _had_ been planning on talking to her, shockingly enough, but now he could tell that talking would not be an option.

Her entire body was openly daring him to make a move, and he was tempted to do exactly as she expected and make the first move…but he didn't. Instead, he waited. Shae smirked at him, as though she was already victorious.

"That's what I thought…you are a _coward_. You don't have the stomach to kill me." Bronn said nothing, and she continued to speak, attempting to rile him up. "Unlike you, I know what I want and I will do _any_ thing to get it. Tyrion is an idiot who thinks with his cock, and would never dare imagine that a woman could outsmart him. Well, I have, and I will do everything I can in order to escape this _hell!_ Do you think I _like_ being a whore? I may be good at it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Unlike _you_ ," she added, sneering. "Who seems to welcome the blood on his hands, so long as there's gold in it as well."

Bronn said nothing, even as her words hit dangerously close to home.

"You think she loves you? The Stark girl?"

The sellsword didn't reply, but he felt his heart beat hasten for the first time during their encounter.

"You are sadly mistaken, sellsword…she only just turned a woman and, like Tyrion, is only thinking about the heat between her legs, and she will leave you once you give her what she wants! It's what bitches like her _do…_ "

Bronn raised an eyebrow at her surprisingly creative twist of words, but other than that, showed no outward reaction to her inflammatory words.

Shae smirked a second time…and then she did exactly the wrong thing. She turned away from him.

Taking advantage of the opening, his hand and heartbeat steady, Bronn stepped up behind her, his dagger fitting neatly between her third and fourth ribs, his other hand wrapped firmly around her mouth, stifling any sound that she might make. Her whole body stiffened in his grasp, struggled for a brief moment, and then fell limp, her weight suddenly becoming heavier than expected, balancing solely on his blade and braced against his body. Letting out a low groan of exasperation, he pushed her off him, ignoring the low thud of her body as it landed on the worn out boards of the dock.

"Stupid whore," he muttered as he idly wiped off his dagger with the hem of his tunic. "Never turn your back on a man you know is willing to sell his sword…"

Bronn then lifted the dagger up to eye level and inspected it in the light, checking to make sure that he'd removed all of the blood from the blade.

He looked down at Shae's body and let out a weary sigh.

"Couldn't be helped."

He slid the dagger back into its' proper resting place and then leaned over and yanked at the twine, which was significantly stronger than it looked, using it to tie a rock around her waist. He then looked down at her one last time, his eyes cold and distant…and then, with one firm shove of his boot against her side, pushed her into the water.

 _A proper burial_ , he thought to himself.

He stared at what little blood stained the dock and brushed it off. No one would think twice about it, and would assume that it was from fish, and not from a human.

As he stalked back towards the castle, he thought about his actions and whether or not they had been strictly necessary…but then he thought of Sansa. The conclusion was simple. Shae had been a threat to Sansa's safety. Now she wasn't. He had done the right thing.

His fingers tightened briefly on the dagger at his waist, and he silently wished that he could have made the little bitch suffer more than she had. It had been a more reverent death than she had deserved. Shae _deserved_ to have been tortured for several hours on the point of his blade, begging for death…that would have much more fitting and much more satisfying for him, but Bronn knew that Sansa would not approve, so he had kept it clean and quiet.

He was not worried about Tyrion. The Lord would worry for a few days, but then come to the conclusion that Shae had found a way out of King's Landing, and that suited the sellsword just fine.

However, as Bronn approached his quarters, he thought of Sansa and guilt, an unusual feeling for him, struck him once more.

He could not tell her what he had done. However, he knew it would come out eventually, but now was not the time for it to happen. Later, perhaps. But even as he thought it, the nauseous feeling returned. Even after he was in his private rooms, as he stripped his weapons from his person, the thought came back to him, along with the unaccustomed feelings.

He had done it for _her._

Feeling a sudden, inexplicable surge of anger, he threw his jerkin to the floor, almost violently, and then glared back at his closed door, as though silently accusing it of wrongdoing against him.

Despite every logical and practical reason that condoned and supported his actions, Bronn knew, without a doubt, that they would come back to haunt him in some way. It was easy enough lying to Tyrion; he did it regularly and without any feelings of guilt…but lying to Sansa? That was different. It was _completely_ different. By now, he was able to admit the truth to himself. He was in love with her. Bronn, the mighty sellsword, now knight, feared by most everyone, including his employer, had been brought to his knees by a girl. A wolf in sheep's clothing.

And not just any girl. Sansa Stark.

The fiercest, kindest, and most fascinating woman that he had ever met…and he was completely and utterly in love with her.

And it fucking _terrified_ him. He had made a silent promise to himself to never let anyone in like that. But now, completely unexpectedly, he had, and it was clouding his judgment. He briefly considered simply following his old plan and leaving…but his conscience stopped him from doing so. Bronn knew he couldn't do that to her.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, he ran a hand through his hair, agitated and feeling off balance. Ironic considering that he had been steady and calm only minutes before as he'd sent Shae to her watery grave, never to be seen again, his hand sure, his movements clean and precise. Sansa changed all that. She made him feel…well, that was the problem. She made him _feel._ And, as he'd told Tyrion, feelings, in his line of work, only got people killed, and that was the _exact_ thing that he was trying to prevent.

A dragon and a wolf.

That did not bode well…

Resigning himself to the inevitable continual frustration, he reluctantly lied down on his cot, crossing his arms defiantly over his chest.

He would not go quietly, that was for certain. If Sansa was his final destination, then he would most likely fight it every step of the way, so Bronn began to mentally prepare himself for the battle ahead. It would involve denial and plenty of misplaced anger, he was sure, and he was fairly positive that the Stark girl would receive the brunt of it; not on purpose, however.

He out a sigh and closed his eyes.

Tomorrow. He'd deal with it tomorrow.

* * *

 **Part 14/?**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Sansa strolled through the garden, her nerves on fire as she did so. She made every effort to hide it, of course, but she had no idea of knowing if she was successful. Bronn was following at a discreet distance, but was just close enough to draw the attention of Lord Baelish. They were purposefully close to Baelish's offices in the castle, making sure that he saw. She _hated_ this plan, but she knew that they had no choice, so she ignored the rippling feeling in her gut that protested against her every action and did it anyway.

This encounter _had_ to happen…but that didn't mean that she had to be comfortable with it. In fact, she was decidedly _un_ comfortable with the whole situation, because Sansa was well aware just how much it hurt Bronn to act this way towards her, digging under his skin in the worst way possible, dredging up bad memories, and Sansa was loathe to cause him such discomfort.

But she was determined to get out of King's Landing, and this was the only way that it was going to happen.

Sansa could feel her jaw tightening, tensing, and she had to consciously let it go.

She knew where Bronn was, she could sense him just out of her periphery, and she knew that he was staying close not only to draw Baelish's attention, but to also keep an eye on her. As much as she felt confident about her abilities, she felt safer knowing that Bronn was nearby.

He had told her that he would approach her as soon as Paetyr was in sight.

And he did.

As soon as they both knew that they had the weasel's attention, the sellsword approached from behind and to her right, giving Sansa only a second to react as he almost brutally grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the side, shoving her firmly up against a wall. Instead of his body feeling yielding and pliant, it was hard and she could feel the barely suppressed disgust that he held back as he forced himself to take advantage of her.

"Struggle, girl," he hissed into her ear as his other hand irreverently pulled at the hem of her dress. "Struggle or he won't believe it…"

Forcing down the anger at being forced into this position, she struggled against him, all the while, he tightened his grip on her wrist. After a moment, however, it no longer felt as though she was pretending, as the Bronn she knew seemed to disappear; in his place was a man who was taking what he wanted, when and however he wanted…and a trickle of fear ran through her.

Even though Sansa knew that he had warned her about this, _"I might not be able to control it…It is dangerous…It is unpredictable and volatile…It's who I was long before I ever met you…"_ , facing the reality of it was much worse and more terrifying than she had expected. She was no longer pretending to struggle, and even called out, saying, "Bronn, please...don't…!", but he didn't seem to be listening, his eyes seemingly colder than they'd been the night before.

Just as his hand was sliding between her thighs, his fingers tight and forcing themselves higher, her eyes shut tight at what was about to happen, Baelish's voice rang out.

"Doesn't look like your attention is wanted, _Ser_ Bronn."

His emphasis on the title dripped with mocking derision, and for the first time, Sansa was relieved to hear the man's voice. Anything to keep Bronn away from her.

However, at his voice, Bronn seemed to shake free from whatever gripped him, and he pulled back, his hand dropping from between her legs, his eyes lightening and a look of total disgust crossed his rugged features and Sansa knew, in that moment, that he was furious at himself and at what he'd almost done to her.

However, as he looked at her, she could see something more in his look. As if he was experiencing guilt…but not about what had just happened. About something that he was remembering. It was a very distinctive look, one that she was intimately familiar with, but she brushed it off, knowing that now was not the time to think about it.

Wrenching herself from his grasp, she walked briskly towards Baelish and said, "It was nothing, my Lord."

Bronn glared back at the two of them, looking down at where she'd wrapped her hands firmly around Baelish's arm, and then fell back into character as he leered lecherously and said, "Oh, trust me…it was _definitely_ something."

He then turned and strode out of the garden, leaving her and Paetyr behind. She was actually genuinely grateful for his interference, which made it all the more easy to respond when he asked her if he wanted her to escort her back to her quarters.

Sansa shook her head.

"No, thank you, my Lord. If…if it pleases you, I would much rather spend time in your company."

She looked back at him, their eyes level with each other, and gave him a faint smile, one that seemed to work, as he nodded and patted her hand, which was still wrapped around his arm, and said, "Of course, Sansa. I completely understand. Now," he added in a low, hushed tone, as they began to walk towards his office, "I suspect that you might be more amenable to hearing about my plans for your early exit from King's Landing?"

At that, her eyes lit up, and she was able to nod with genuine excitement at hearing his words. Everything was going exactly according to plan, just as she, Bronn, and Tyrion had hoped. And, to make it even more interesting, it seemed that Baelish was involving a man who had no ties to any of the royal families, in order to make sure that nothing could be traced back to him or her. She was grateful for it, but she was also worried about how long it would take him to put it together.

Bronn was leaving tomorrow, and she had to be gone before Joffrey's wedding to Margery Tyrell, in three days…but she might have to stay for it, after all.

That did not sit well with her. And she knew that if Bronn knew about it, it would not sit well with him, either.

Putting it to the side, she focused on the task at hand, keeping thoughts of Bronn in the back of her mind, knowing it would do no good to linger on them. She was going to be leaving, and _that's_ what she needed to be thinking about.

Not what ifs.

* * *

Tyrion strode back to his chambers after a long day at court, wondering why he hadn't seen Shae that entire day. Even though it was normal for her to not come and see him during daylight hours, he was certain that she would have tried to come earlier as their ties had seemed to be renewed and rekindled.

As he changed and settled for bed, he waited for her. It had become her habit to come over in the evenings, where they would then spend the time indulging themselves physically to their hearts' content…but as the hour grew long, and his wine cask lowered bit by bit, Tyrion was very aware that she would not be coming over that evening. He was slightly worried and he felt a linger of apprehension in the back of his mind as he thought of what might have happened to her, but brushed it off, finally coming to the conclusion that she was somehow upset with him and making him pay for the imagined slight against her by ignoring him.

Enjoying one last glass of wine, he absently wondered how Sansa and Bronn's plan was coming along. He didn't know all of the details, as per their agreement, but he wasn't an imbecile, and knew that something large was certainly about to happen. He knew Sansa would be gone, at least, but he didn't know what Bronn's plans were, just yet.

He had the vague inkling that Bronn already had a place to go, a place that he would be meeting Sansa after she escaped King's Landing, but he wasn't entirely sure where it might be.

Bronn was a sellsword and focused on his own self-preservation, and to see him actually worried about someone other than himself was rather disarming, but not entirely unpleasant.

Tyrion took a long swig of his wine and placed it on the table, dropping to the floor, and then walked on surprisingly steady legs to his bed. The curtains were already drawn, and he sunk into the soft, silken, red and gold blankets that covered the heavy mattress.

He wondered how the sellsword was taking it. Was he panicking, or was he steady and firm in his resolve?

Also, why was he so threatened by Shae?

Shae was smart, Tyrion could readily admit that, but she was not the kind to sell someone out simply for the thrill of it. There would have to be something in it for her, and Tyrion could see no obvious reasons for her to do so. He kept her in lavish comfort, and paid her well enough that she could have had her _own_ servant if she wished it, but she seemed perfectly happy to be his paid companion.

The situation was not as dire as Bronn feared it to be, so the dwarf let the thought go.

And he slept.

* * *

Bronn strode down the corridor, trying to make haste without drawing attention to himself as he headed back to his quarters to pack up his remaining things. He was leaving sooner than even _he_ had planned, so he needed to escape quickly, without drawing anyone's notice. It was past the witching hour, so he was less likely to be seen…still, he wasn't taking any chances. He took every corridor that afforded him proper cover and kept him out of view of the guards.

As soon as he arrived, he hastily grabbed the few things he owned and slipped them into his pack. One of the benefits of living a life on the road was that he had not accumulated a bunch of worthless _things_ along the way, and could travel at a moment's notice.

Bronn had the brief presence of mind to grab Sansa's wrist guards and put them in his bag, as well. She would be needing them once she joined him outside of the castle walls.

His fingers lingered too long, not wanting to let go of the leather, and he silently marveled at how she had grown and excelled over the past weeks, become a force to be reckoned with, and he felt his chest swell with pride. Damn. He cared too much.

Shoving them in almost brutally, he tied the pack shut and threw it over his shoulder and quickly left, taking the same precautions as before.

He could not be seen.

* * *

Sansa inwardly marveled at the simplicity of the plan that Baelish had shown to her regarding her escape from King's Landing. During the wedding feast, Baelish told her that there would be a great distraction, one that he could not reveal the details of, but that it would be enough of one for her to simply slip down a back pathway where one of his servants would meet her and usher her quickly to their mounts, already packed with provisions, and they would ride off without anyone being the wiser.

It was almost too simple, she silently mused as she got ready for bed, thinking over it, and seeing too many ways that it could go wrong.

Bronn had been teaching her that if something sounded too good to be true, then it most likely was. He had been teaching her how to question everything and not follow blindly, not even him. Immediately, she had questioned him, saying how could she know that he was telling her the truth? And then he'd grinned…

This was something that she had to think about.

How could Baelish benefit from her disappearance? If anything, Sansa mused, it made more sense for him to keep her there, to use as an asset and an ally, someone to vouch for his character….

Yet, he was helping her escape.

She thought about it carefully. What sort of distraction would be _enough_ of a distraction that her absence would go completely unnoticed?

 _Well,_ she silently mused. _If something were to happen to Stannis, or Cersei, or Margery or…or Joffrey?_ That was when it hit her. This had to be Petyr's plan: he was going to get rid of Joffrey. That would be the only thing that would bring the whole kingdom to a standstill long enough for her to not be noticed escaping. Sansa suddenly felt sick to her stomach as the next realization hit her.

They would think it was her.

Once they realized she was missing, they would blame her for Joffrey's death, and she would become hunted by virtually everyone in the kingdom, not just sympathizers of the king. The Lannisters would most certainly pay a hefty reward to anyone who could bring her in, and money, as Bronn constantly said, could buy virtually anyone, if the fee was high enough.

Sansa suddenly had the desire to grab her things and run that very night, not wanting to be involved with Baelish's plan…but she quickly realized that she would not make it past the gates.

Settling into her bed, and wondering where Shae was that evening, as she had not arrived to help her change into her nightclothes, she put her reckless thoughts to the side, silently reassuring herself that in only a few days she would be free.

Not safe…but free.

And that was what was important.

Bronn had taught her how to defend herself; not just how to defend herself, but how to _fight_ , and she could use that. Even if she was alone, she was never truly alone. Bronn had taught her well, and he had taught to never hesitate, and so she wouldn't. She would kill, if she had to, if it meant being free. She would do it not only for herself, but for Bronn.

He had helped make her who she was.

No longer cowering.

No longer afraid.

Feeling a surge of confidence, Sansa closed her eyes and put her head on the pillow.

Only a few more days.

* * *

 **Part 15/?**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Sansa was nervous as a handmaiden dressed her, fastening her laces too tightly on her bodice.

"Jera," she said, a gasp in her voice, "It's too tight."

"But…all the ladies wear it this way, Lady Lannister," she said, her brow furrowing in confusion.

Sansa bristled at being called so formally, and glared at her in the mirror as she brusquely replied, "I don't care if it's the fashion, _handmaiden._ Loosen them or you will be dismissed."

Jera looked sufficiently scared and did as she asked, and Sansa let out a sigh of relief as she was finally able to breathe. She did not feel the least bit guilty as she watched the thirteen-year-old blonde leave the room, and instead felt a rush of confidence. Today was the day that she was escaping.

All too soon, Tyrion showed up to escort her, and she let herself be led to the chapel of the seven gods, ignoring the looks sent in their direction. She kept her head held high and her eyes focused. Baelish had told her that he would smuggle her out during the wedding feast, so she would have to wait. She could wait. Sansa had waited long enough and few more hours of daylight were worth the price to pay to finally be free of King's Landing.

Tyrion gently squeezed her wrist as Joffrey walked up to the dais to wait for his soon to be wife, Margaery Tyrell.

She clenched her jaw as the vows were being said. The only thing that reassured her was the fact that _she_ wasn't the one who was standing up the dais, being forced into marriage with a boy who probably would have raped her on their wedding night. She swallowed as they walked down and passed by her, relieved she wasn't the one on his arm, his ring shackled to her hand…but also scared for Margaery. The things he would most likely do to her...she felt sick to her stomach.

All too soon, but at the same time, not soon enough, they made their way to the wedding feast, Tyrion on her arm the whole way, giving her strength and resolve in just his firm hand on her wrist.

As they were settled next to Tommen, Sansa discreetly glanced around the courtyard, trying to see just how things might be happening. However, as Joffrey proceeded to humiliate Tyrion in front of everyone, she felt a churning in her gut. A feeling that she _shouldn't_ reach out for the goblet as it fell under the table.

…and it proved to be the right choice.

As he lay choking in his own blood, the place went into a panic, Cersei rushing down from her chair to hold her dying son in her arms, screaming at everyone to either get away from her or to help her. Which one was more important to her, Sansa didn't know. And she didn't care. During the melee, she felt a hand grab her wrist and drag her out past the marble columns and down a hidden path, nearly completely overgrown with deep ivy.

After being dragged what felt like a mile through an unfamiliar backwash of King's Landing, a hoarse voice hissed back at her, "Keep up, girl. Baelish paid me to get you out of here _alive_ , and if you can't keep your feet I will leave you here to rot. Do you understand?"

She nodded, and he then added, "My name's Asher," and she quickened her pace, and Asher soon let go of her wrist, obviously reassured that she could keep up. Her heart pounded and she heard thunder in her ears as they ran through more overgrown underbrush, and Sansa felt a wave of relief wash over her when she saw the horses. There were three of them: one for each of them to ride, and the third laden down with food and supplies. Without thinking about it, she swung up onto the large chestnut without any help, ignoring the hand the middle-aged man offered her.

Sansa tugged on her cloak, making sure that it covered her red hair, which was a dead giveaway. Asher swung up on top of the bay and pulled away practically as soon as his feet were in the stirrups. She urged her horse forward and followed after him; the pack-laden blood bay gelding was tethered to Asher's horse and easily followed, no tension in the rope.

They broke into a brisk trot, and then into a canter, taking an un-seeable route through the trees and beyond the borders of King's Landing.

They rode in silence for hours, the older man glancing back at her every so often, as though making sure that she hadn't taken off. Sansa felt questions on the tip of her tongue, but she tightened her grip on the reins and pinched her lips, afraid that any wrong word might change Asher's mind.

After a long while, they broke the thick woods into a small clearing, arriving at a small shack. He slid off his horse and petted its' neck, murmuring in that raspy voice of his, "Good girl, Lyra."

He removed her saddle and bridle, slipped on her halter and tied her off, letting her graze, while Sansa slowly followed suit, hesitant to be stopping so soon. She would have much rather rode all through the evening and into the dead of night, as she wanted as much distance between her and her prison as possible. However, that was not the only reason why she was wary. As she removed her cloak, she didn't have to look to feel the man's eyes on her. It made her skin crawl.

After tying off her horse, she polished the leather, and then finally asked, "My horse…what's her name?"

"His," Asher corrected her. "His name's Zmaj."

Sansa's brow furrowed in confusion.

"What does that mean?"

He snorted and muttered, "Stupid girl doesn't know her languages," but louder, he said, "It means dragon. And it suits him, the beast," he added, a dark smile on his cracked and sunburnt lips. "He's a fiery one, he is. But he seems to be calm under your touch, Lady Lannister."

She looked away, disconcerted by his almost leering look, and then said in a short, clipped tone, "I will not be called Lady Lannister any longer. You may either call me Sansa, or…" She paused, knowing that she couldn't be called Lady Stark, for obvious reasons, and then finished her sentence impulsively, saying, "Lady of the Blackwater."

Asher gave her a look, but then nodded.

"As you wish…Lady of the Blackwater."

She flushed, but couldn't help but be pleased at how it sounded. She pulled out a bag of oats out of the packs and gave some of them to the pack horse, who had been nudging her side for the past few moments, not so discreetly asking her if she had any treats.

"And this animal's name?"

He grunted.

"Brego."

Sansa looked calmly at the blood bay and ran her fingers through its mane as it shoved its nose into the bag, munching away. She would give him to Bronn. He would be a good match for him, she thought. Brego, much like Bronn, was strong and silent. Suddenly, the horse brought his nose around and nipped at her side, and she startled. Brego seemed amused at her reaction and snorted. She playfully slapped him on his broad shoulder. He was just as devious as Bronn, as well. A perfect match.

As it got dark, Asher told her to get inside, and that he would stand guard. However, as Sansa stood inside the barely standing four walls, she felt a surge of apprehension in her stomach. Even though he seemed cordial enough, she had an uncomfortable feeling that something was wrong. Yes, Baelish had paid him to get her out. But how far out? And how was she going to break away from him to meet Bronn without him knowing?

Taking her time, she turned towards the cot in the corner, wary of how it was positioned away from the door. Bronn had taught her to never turn her back on her exit. She moved the cot and sat down on top of it, wrapping her arms around her knees, her fingers touching on the blade on her lower leg. She would draw it if she had to.

She didn't know how long she sat there, but eventually her eyes drifted, and she startled awake at hearing the door swing open.

Immediately, her hand went to her blade and she drew it out, getting quickly to her feet, prepared to defend herself…and then saw that it was Asher.

"Steady, girl. It's mornin'." She looked outside in shock, not quite able to believe that she had actually slept. He tossed a piece of bread in her direction and grunted, "There's your breakfast, now saddle up Zmaj and let's get moving. No sign of anyone followin' us, but I'm not takin' any chances, now get your pretty ass in gear."

He left, and Sansa felt a surge of anger at his coarse actions. Fine. If he was going to treat her that way, then she would act that way. She moved to the pack that he'd thrown in after her the night before, and dug through it, pleased to find the exact linens she'd been hoping to find. Men's trousers, a tunic, and a thick, cowled cloak that would disguise her hair and face easily. She glanced behind her, making sure the door was shut, and quickly changed. If she was going to be on the run, then a dress would only get in her way.

As she emerged from the ramshackle hut in her new clothes, Asher gave her a quick once over, and then grunted again.

"Good to see you bein' practical, Lady of the Blackwater." He tightened the girth on Lyra and then moved over to Brego, throwing the pack over his withers. "We'll be ridin' hard today, so no more of this leisurely wanderin', now. Before, we were trying to see if anyone was followin'. No one is. So, today we're aimin' for distance. Zmaj is strong, and he'll last longer than the other two, so I'll set the pace with Lyra, here, so we don't tire out. Think you can handle it, milady?"

She tightened her jaw and straightened her back and moved to Zmaj, putting on the tack quickly and efficiently, and then swung up into the saddle with practiced ease and shot a look in Asher's direction.

"I am not to be coddled, _Asher,_ " she said, spitting his name out like a curse. "Running is what wolves do best, after all."

He smirked and shot her a humorless grin as he swung up into his own saddled, grabbing the lead reins for Brego as he did, and replied, "Good. Because today…you're going to be running."

He took off into a brisk canter, and Sansa followed. After only a mile, he broke into a gallop, and she urged her gelding to follow, and she felt a rush of joy at feeling him surge beneath her, his legs flying over the forest floor, never a misstep as she lead him after her bodyguard. It had been a long time since she'd done something like this. She had used to love taking out her father's prize stallion and running him through the paths across Winterfell. It was as close to flying as she'd ever felt, and it was a heady feeling, blood pounding through her head, feeling the muscles of the horse between her thighs pushing through every stride with pure strength…absolutely intoxicating.

For an hour or so, she was able to forget why they were running, and lost herself to the rhythmic pounding of Zmaj's hooves on the hardened ground, each one echoing in her head like a promise of the path that lay before her. A reminder that she was one step closer to Bronn.

After two hours, they slowed down, allowing the horses to walk and breathe, and give them both a chance to catch their breath, as well.

Hesitantly, she asked, "Where are we?"

Asher gave her a look, as if he wasn't going to answer her, but then said, "West of Rosby. Baelish gave me instructions to take you to Rosby. Said you'd be hidden and well taken care of at a local inn. He knows the innkeeper's daughter, and she's promised to keep an eye on you."

West of Rosby. Where Bronn said they would meet.

She stopped Zmaj.

"I have to relieve myself," she said quickly, sliding out of the stirrups and down to the ground. She turned and walked towards the trees, glancing back behind her, making sure that he was still there. Yes. He was still there. Now, how was she going to find Bronn? She ducked behind a wide tree, just out of sight, and looked around her.

The forest west of Rosby. _Think_ , she told herself. Think. Bronn would leave a sign that only _she_ would understand. But what would he leave behind that no one else would notice? What might he do that would draw only _her_ attention, and no one else's? And then it hit her. He would have left something of his behind. Something that only she knew about. Which meant nothing to her. No. He wouldn't have left something behind. No… _she_ had to leave something behind. Quickly, Sansa ripped part of her shirt at the hem and tied it on a branch.

Deciding it had been long enough, she walked back out and got back on Zmaj, but not before casually saying that she would hold Brego's reins.

Asher seemed slightly surprised, but also relieved, and willingly handed over the reins.

They broke back into a swift canter, not quite at full pace, while Sansa kept her eyes open. He would come for her. Tracking people down was what he was good at. He would find her, of that much she was certain. He would find her and save her. No, not save her. Be with her.

She knew that she would never _truly_ be safe, not until the search was called off, and that would only happen if they thought she was dead.

They continued this way for several more days, camping every night.

On the fourth night, they slowed once more, and then Asher came to a stop and said, "We'll stay here for the night. It's just half a day away from the city. You'll sleep next to the fire, I'll keep watch." He dropped from Lyra and moved to tie her off to a stake he stabbed deep in the ground.

She watched for a long while, not quite willing to dismount, but finally did, taking care of the two other horses, still taken aback by how kind he was to his own horse compared to the other horses. He was deeply affectionate with the mare, but was brusque with the boys, treating them both more like pack mules, instead of the brilliantly smart and strong horses they were. Much like he treated people. His mare, Lyra, was lovely, but complied too easily with his wishes, bending her head with every single touch, giving in as if there was nothing else, her personality dull and indistinct from any other animal's.

Her father, Ned Stark, had taught her that a horse and rider should always be in conversation, and that the rider should respect the horse enough to recognize when to follow the animal's instincts over their own. If the horse followed too blindly, it could lead a man straight into danger. Sansa felt that slightly defiant spark of fire in both Brego and Zmaj.

They listened to her, but they scolded her when she was wrong with snorts and subtle shifts of their bodies, and she respected it.

The light dropped quickly and Asher started their fire just as fast as night fell. Sansa moved close to it, laying out a roll of cloth that did little to insulate the ground beneath her, but it was better than nothing. He moved away from the fire, just as he'd said he would, and turned his back to it, his sword across his knees, staring out into the darkness.

Sansa ate little, her appetite escaping her as she thought of what might happen if Bronn did not find her in time.

She pushed it from her mind and as she began to settle for the night, she brought over Zmaj, who laid down behind her.

She finally laid down, her back to her horse, drawing warmth from him keeping her eyes trained on Asher's faint outline, certain that she would not be sleeping. Again, she was wrong. She woke up suddenly in the night, disoriented and confused when she saw Asher gone from his place. Immediately on her guard, she drew her blade and got to her feet, Zmaj surging to a standing position behind her, picking up on her tense body language.

He snorted and pawed, but she settled him with a touch of her hand on his neck.

Straining her ears, Sansa heard the faint sounds of a scuffle.

Robbers.

Realizing she would have to fight, she steeled herself, and pulled out another small blade from her pack while she still had time. This was what Bronn had prepared and trained her for. She could do this. She kicked dirt over the fire to make it more difficult for her opponent to see, and pressed closer to the gelding to hide herself and give her an advantage. _Fast feet, level knees, loose hips,_ she silently recited in her mind. _Fast feet, level knees, loose hips._

Very faintly, she heard the shuffling of feet.

Her fingers tightened around the hilt.

A hand suddenly grabbed her arm.

Screaming, she violently wrenched her arm out of her attacker's grasp and turned on him, bringing her knee up, feeling it hit ribs, and he groaned and fell back a step. Pressing forward, she closed the space between them and lashed out with her blade, but an arm came up just in time, so she only hit leather. Realizing she had to get him to the ground, she pulled back slightly and then surged forward and used her weight to throw the two of them to the ground, where they tussled for a moment, until she unexpectedly found herself pinned.

Remember what Bronn had taught her, she rotated her hips, brought her knee up as hard as she could, and the man grunted, his hands loosening on her wrists, so she kicked him again, and crawled out from underneath him the instant she was free. She stood and brought her blade to his neck, her other hand holding his head still, but then he spoke…

"Dammit, girl, I should never have taught you that fucking move…"

She froze.

Her blade fell to the ground.

Sansa suddenly felt her knees give out under her and she dropped to the forest floor and then moved so that she knelt in front of the sellsword, not quite believing it was him.

"Bronn…is it…really you…?"

"No, I'm a white walker, of course it's bloody me, girl! I've been tracking you for days, now." He rubbed his throat and gave her a look in the dark. "I've taken care of Asher, don't you worry 'bout that. I just need to know if you're alright?"

She nodded, unable to speak, staring at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Finally, at a loss for words and not sure of what else to do, she put her hands on either side of his face and drew him into a kiss, trying to show what she couldn't say. It was a hot and fierce kiss, a mixture of teeth and tongue as they both tried to find solace in each other. She pressed herself closer, so that they were flush against each other from shoulder to thigh.

Finally, she pulled back and said, "I missed you…"

He let out a laugh.

"And I missed you, you maddening woman. You didn't make it easy to track you, you know."

Sansa shrugged and shook her head.

"I didn't have much of a choice. Asher kept us moving so often, I barely had any time…I was so afraid you…you wouldn't…" She nearly choked on her words, the tears finally starting to fall as the weight of everything came crashing down. She was free. She was with Bronn. They were _together_ …

Before she could spend a second longer thinking on it, Bronn dragged her up to her feet as he stood, and then looked over at the two horses, Zmaj and Brego. He pointed at them and said, "We're keeping the horses, don't care what you say, girl," and she managed to put herself back together enough to snap back with, "I was planning on keeping them, you idiot. I figured you would track us on foot, mostly, so you would need a horse. That one's yours," she added, motioning to Brego.

She grabbed her pack and swung up onto Zmaj bareback, and then gave the sellsword a faint smile as he followed suit.

"Now," she said, turning the chestnut in his direction. "Where are you taking me?"

He gave her a grim smile.

"We're headed north, milady," he said, and she drew in a sharp breath. "Your kingdom needs their queen."

Surprised, but suddenly feeling hopeful for the future, Sansa nodded, and they turned their horses away from the path, Bronn leading the way on the blood bay gelding. For the first time, she felt a surge of strength run through her. She would be going home to Winterfell, reclaiming the north.

With Bronn at her side.

* * *

 **Part 16/?**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

They had only travelled for a week, but it was taking its toll on her more than she wanted to admit. Bronn seemed fine with only sleeping for four hours at a time, and not needing to bathe, but Sansa was not accustomed to such circumstances, and so she put her foot down the instant they were near water.

"Bronn," she said as she dismounted and tied off Zmaj to a nearby tree, "I have been accommodating thus far, so I don't see how it is a burden that I ask you to let me have this one thing."

He snorted as he slid down from Brego and threw a smirk in her direction as he replied, "You want to stop for a fucking bath?"

Sansa glared at him, but he was unaffected and rolled his eyes, patting his gelding on the neck and pulling out a bag of feed for both of the horses. As she attached their feed bags, she said, "Yes. I do. No one is following us, we are alone, and there is a river right here. An hour, at the most. Is it too much to ask?"

He removed the saddle from his gelding and drawled, "Whatever my lady asks."

She knew that he didn't like stopping, but she needed to be clean, if only for a few hours. Resolute and unwavering, she grabbed her bag and moved towards the river…and was more than a bit pleasantly surprised when she could hear the sound of a waterfall just out of sight. Sansa slipped down the bank, looking for it, and as she rounded a dense crop of trees, she saw it. Perfect.

Still wary, she very carefully removed her clothes.

They were in the middle of the wilderness. They were alone. She could do this.

Sansa removed the last layer and then sprinted to the water, sinking as deep in as quickly as she possibly could. The water was _freezing._ Her whole body shivered violently, but she continued to move through the water, ignoring the cold, instead relishing in the fact that she was finally getting clean. The water slipped between her legs, cleaning away a disgusting layer of sweat and grime from places of her body that she didn't even care to think about. All that mattered was getting clean.

* * *

As Bronn settled the horses, stripping them of their leather tack, he kept a wary eye on the perimeter. There was no reason for him to be overly cautious; they were in the middle of nowhere between Rosby and Maiden's Head, not even remotely close to any place where people might find them. Not even bandits.

However, as he turned to grab the animal's feed bags, he noticed movement from the corner of his eye. Before his fingers could even reach the hilt of his blade, the sellsword found himself thrown onto his back, a large male figure on top of him, heavy enough that Bronn could not easily throw him.

He struggled with the man, trying to untangle him enough to get at his blade that uncomfortably pressed into his back as he was pinned against a rock.

Bronn was not used to being taken off guard, and attempted to violently free himself, but felt an unfamiliar feeling as he realized that he was losing. Fear. The telling part of his loss, however, was the thick, meaty hand that wrapped around his throat and began to choke him with far more strength than it should have had.

Just as his vision went black, he heard the snap of leather…

* * *

The water sluiced through Sansa's hair, over her skin, and she sighed in relief. Clean. Finally. She rubbed the palms of her hands over her legs, removing the salty sweat from the inside of her thighs, which had grossly accumulated in her days of riding. Just as she was about to put her head back under the water, she heard a high sound over the rush of the waterfall.

She stepped out and saw Brego break through the trees on the shore at a full gallop, slowing as he came closer to the shore, his sides heaving and nostrils flaring.

Not thinking, she pushed herself through the water, and as soon as her wet feet hit the muddy bank, she lunged forward and grabbed her blade from her pile of discarded clothes. She then quickly reached up and grasped at the gelding's snapped rein. He didn't settle, and pawed and snorted, agitated. Something was definitely wrong.

She heard a loud crash come from the direction of where Bronn had set up camp.

Bile and panic rose in the back of her throat. She ran into the brush, barely noticing the thorns that grabbed at her naked flesh, and lifted her blade in her hand, ready to attack…and then froze as she broke into the clearing.

Bronn was on his back with a large, bear-like man on top of him, both of his hands around the sellsword's neck, while Bronn's weapon lay just beyond his reach.

Sansa didn't even think.

She shrieked at the top of her lungs and rushed at them, throwing herself over the man's back, knowing that if he turned, she would be helpless against him. Using what Bronn had taught her, she wrapped her left hand around the top of the man's head, pulling it back as far as she could and started to move her right hand in to pull her blade across his neck, but in a sudden move, he had bucked her off, leaving her lying stunned in the dirt as her head hit a root. He then moved from Bronn and stalked towards her, and she could see the man's eyes were manic.

She awkwardly crawled backwards, keeping her grip tight on her weapon even as her vision swam, and then heard Bronn coughing and hacking, trying to breathe again, as she struggled to keep distance between herself and the man that was intent on killing her.

Just as the bearish figure was upon her, Sansa felt a surge of anger and managed to scramble to her feet just in time to swing her right arm up in defense…and the knife found its mark.

It swung perfectly across the assailant's throat, bright red arterial spray covering her, landing in her hair, across her face, and all across her still naked chest.

She glanced back at Bronn, panic still in her eyes, dropped her knife and rushed to his side, where he was just sitting up, rubbing one hand over his now severely sore and bruised neck.

"Fuck, girl," he rasped out.

Sansa ignored his epithet, looking him over for any other injuries, while he looked at her with a look that she didn't quite understand. Almost as if he'd never seen her before. She ignored it and ran shaking hands over his shoulders and chest, checking for any sign of blood.

"Are you alright?" she finally gasped out, her blood still pounding in her ears, keeping her on edge and even causing her to jump as Brego snapped a branch under hoof as he stepped back into the clearing, shaking himself and pawing at the ground once more. In a daze, she left Bronn's side and approached the horse, resting one blood-covered hand on the gelding's flank, the horse's quivering muscles settling under her surprisingly steady touch. The blood-bay continued to breathe heavily and she whispered low, reassuring sounds into its' ear, and Brego slowly calmed.

Bronn, still on the ground, stared at Sansa, and was astounded at the picture she made in front of him: her hair was still wet, and blood and water dripped freely down her fully exposed body in equal parts, still sticky and red in her hair and across her lips and throat, but smeared into a diluted pink over her hips and thighs.

She glanced back at him, as if aware of his eyes on her, and said in a broken voice, "I…I'm glad you're alright…"

He snorted, choked, and then cleared his throat as he stood and quipped back at her, "Thanks to you, girl."

Sansa dropped her eyes, and that was when she seemed to realize that she was naked. She quickly tried to move to cover herself, but the sellsword stopped her with a firm hand on her upper arm.

"Don't," he murmured. "You…look…"

He couldn't seem to find the words to finish his sentence, and Sansa rolled her eyes and blushed at the same time, as well as tried to pull her arm from his grip.

"I'm naked and covered in blood," she muttered. "Every man's dream, I'm sure…"

"One of mine," he snapped back, not a single hesitation in his words. "Jus' never thought I'd see it happen, though," he added with a twist of his lips.

Sansa looked back at him and then pulled her eyes away and said, "I'd rather be dressed," and Bronn nodded and replied, "You're goin' to need another dip in that river before that happens, girl," and Sansa tried not to show the small smile that wanted to stretch across her mouth at hearing some of his good humor already restored.

She then swallowed, nodded, and then asked in a tentative voice, "What…what do we do with…him?"

The sellsword shrugged.

"Burn 'im."

She looked up at him in surprise and he took a moment to admire her nudity before explaining, "Fire's the best way to deal with a body in the middle of nowhere. Keeps wolves and other animals from gettin' to his corpse and drawing attention to people who might be lookin' for someone to hunt." He gave her a dark smile, looked over at the body and then added, "Nice blade work, by the way," acting as if a body was an everyday occurrence. Well, for a man like himself, it probably was.

"I had a good teacher," she said in a voice barely above a whisper.

Sansa turned her eyes away and started back towards the river, and Bronn knew that the fact that she had just killed someone was slowly sinking in. He would leave her alone for the time being. He needed to get rid of the body, after all.

As he gathered wood and started a small fire away from the trees, he looked over his shoulder and wondered where the man had come from. He was good at what he did and he knew that no one had been following them, which meant that the killer had come from ahead of their path. But two questions remained: one, why had he been so strong, and two, why had he attacked the sellsword?

The questions lingered in the back of his mind as reached down to move the body…and that was when he saw it. Just under the man's large leather jerkin, on his chest, there was a deep wound, and it looked like it was from a bit from a rabid animal. But the size of it…shit. Bronn knew what had attacked the man, and he now understood why the man had been so difficult for him to fight. He'd been bitten by a direwolf. If the bite didn't kill, it was said that men went mad from a mythical curse that was placed upon them. Which meant that there was no reason for the man to attack, he'd simply done it out of sheer madness.

Bronn heaved the man's body onto the small pyre and grimaced at the smell of burnt flesh, the smell leaving an acrid taste in the back of his throat.

He looked towards the river and carefully made his way towards it, limping slightly, and immediately felt uncomfortable when he saw the girl sitting in the shallows, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, crying.

Ah, fuck. Not crying. Anything but that.

However, he knew that it was a reasonable reaction for someone such as herself to have, having just killed a man, so he tamped down on his body's reaction at seeing so much naked flesh, and walked towards her, leaving the fire burning behind him.

He approached her, but stayed far enough away, and said, "Sansa…"

Her head snapped to the side and she roughly ran a hand over her tear-stained face and said, "Give me a moment." He started to say more, but she cut him off with a brisk, "I know we need to leave. Just give me a moment, Bronn."

He nodded and headed back to camp. There was a direwolf in the area, and they needed to go as soon as they could; there shouldn't be this one this far south. This was _far_ beyond their range, which meant that it was probably forced there out of sheer preservation, and that worried him. The sellsword knew that the only way to make sure they were safe would be to track it down and, regrettably, kill it.

Bronn re-dressed the horses, and as he was fixing the leather on Brego's reins, Sansa emerged through the trees fully dressed, her face composed, no sign of any blood to betray her actions only less than an hour before.

"We're leaving?"

The sellsword nodded, and lead Zmaj over to her, handing her the reins, and explained, "Yes and no. First, we're goin' to track what drove that man to the raggedy edge. When we find it, I'll take care of it…and then we'll turn northward."

Sansa's brow furrowed as she said, "Track what? I thought he was a bandit…"

"Nope," he drawled, throwing a pack over Brego's hindquarters. "Regular man just driven mad from a bite from a direwolf. We need to track it, and kill it."

At this, her face became vividly animated and she shook her head and fought back with, "No! Don't kill it, Bronn, please…I beg of you…it's not its fault!"

He looked at her as he swung up onto the horse, the reins loose in his hands, curious at her sudden defense of such a violent creature. Direwolves were not to be trifled with, and if there was one down there, it just might decide that the two of them, and their horses, would make a good meal, and he wasn't willing to take that risk.

"Might I ask why you want me to spare the murderous beast?"

Sansa hesitated, her hands lingering on the worn leather of the reins, still standing on the ground. The sellsword watched her, curious as she bit her lip, worried it, and then looked down at the forest floor before finally looking back up at him with a pleading look in her eyes.

"I had one once. She was named Lady…Cersei had her killed for no reason." She swallowed. "She was my protector, my friend…"

Bronn was surprised, not having thought of that before. Of course, the Starks would raise direwolves like pets, it was their bloody sigil, after all. A gray direwolf on a white field of snow. Well, if the girl wanted to see no harm come to the animal, fine. But they still had to track it. There were only two reasons why a wolf would attack a human; one, they were sick in the head and had gone foaming mad, like so many other predators seemed to do, or two, it was injured and had done it out of self-defense.

Either way, they needed to know.

"Fine. I won't kill it…" Sansa breathed a sigh of relief and mounted Zmaj, but then Bronn added, "But if it threatens you, Sansa, I may not have a choice…"

She looked at him a moment, and then nodded, and he felt reassured.

They had a direwolf to track.

* * *

 **Part 17/?**


End file.
